A Gentleman Player; His Adventures on a Secret Mission for Queen Elizabeth. Robert Neilson Stephens
few armchairs, some benches, and several stools. The tapestry on the walls was new, for the defeat of the Spanish Armada, which it portrayed, had occurred but a dozen years before. Ere the actors were seated, lighted candles had been brought, and Master Heminge had stepped into the kitchen to order a supper little in accord with the season (it was now Lent) or with the statutes, but obtainable by the privileged—ribs of beef, capon, sauces, gravies, custard, and other trifles, with a bit of fish for the scrupulous. For players are hungriest after a performance, and there have ever been stomachs least fishily inclined on fish-days, as there are always throats most thirsty for drink where none is allowed; and the hostess of the Mermaid was evidently of a mind with Dame Quickly, who argued, "What's a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent?"10 After their walk in the raw air, and regardless of the customary order at meals, the players made a unanimous call for mulled sack. The drawer, who had come at their bidding without once crying "Anon," used good haste to serve it.
"Times have changed," said Mr. Shakespeare, having hung up cloak, hat, and short rapier, and leaning back in his chair, with a relish of its comfort after a day of exertion and tension. "'Tis not so long since there were ever a dozen merry fellows to sup with us when we came from the play."
"'Tis strange we see nothing of Raleigh," said Sly, standing by the carved chimneypiece, and stretching his hands out over the fire.
"Nay, 'twould be stranger an he came to meet us now," said Laurence Fletcher, "after his show of joy at the earl's beheading."
The allusion was to Raleigh's having witnessed from a window in the Tower the death of his great rival, Essex.
"Nay," said Shakespeare, "though he was a foe to Essex, who was of our patrons, Sir Walter is no enemy to us. I dare swear he hath stood our advocate at court in our present disfavor. But while our friends of one side are now in prison or seclusion, those of the other side stand aloof from us. And for our player-fellowship, as rivalry among the great hath made bitter haters, so hath competition among actors and scribblers spoilt good comradeship."
"Thou'rt thinking how brawny Ben used to sit with us at this table," said Sly.
"And wishing he sat here again," said Shakespeare.
"Tut," said Condell, "he is happier at the Devil tavern, where his heavy wisdom hath no fear of being put out of countenance by thy sharper wit. Will."
"A pox on Ben Jonson for a surly, envious dog!" exclaimed Laurence Fletcher. "I marvel to hear thee speak kindly of him, Will. After thy soliciting us to play his comedy, for him to make a mock of thee and our other writers, in the silly pedantic stuff those brats squeak out at the Blackfriars!" Master Fletcher was, evidently, easily heated on the subject of the satirical pieces written by Jonson for the Chapel Royal boys to play at the Blackfriars Theatre, in which the Globe plays were ridiculed.11 "A pox on him, I say, and his tedious 'humors!'" Whereupon Master Fletcher turned his attention to the beef, which had just arrived.
"Nay," said Shakespeare, "his merit hath had too slow a greeting, and too scant applause. So the wit in him hath soured a little—as wine too long kept exposed, for want of being in request."
"Well," cried Hal Marryott, warmed by copious draughts of the hot sugared sack, "may I never drink again but of hell flame, nor eat but at the devil's own table, if aught ever sour me to such ingratitude for thy beneficence, Master Shakespeare!"
"Go to, Harry! I have not benefited thee, nor Ben Jonson neither."
"Never, indeed! God wot!" exclaimed Hal, spearing with his knife-point a slice of beef, to convey it from his platter to his mouth (forks were not known in England till ten years later). "To open thy door to a gentleman just thrown out of an ale-house, to feed him when he hath not money to pay for a radish, to lodge him when he hath not right of tenure to a dung-hill—these are no benefits, forsooth."
"Was that thy condition, then, when he took thee as coadjutor?" Fletcher asked, a little surprised.
"That and worse," answered Hal. "Hath Mr. Shakespeare never told you?"
"Never but thou wert a gentleman desirous of turning player. Let's hear it, an thou wilt."
"Ay, let us!" cried Heminge and Condell; and Sly added: "For a player to turn gentleman is nothing wonderful now, but that a gentleman should turn player hath puzzled me."12
"Why," quoth Harry, now vivacious with wine, and quite ready to do most of the talking, "you shall see how a gentleman might easily have turned far worse than player. 'Twas when I was newly come to London, in 1598, not three years ago. Ye've all heard me tell of the loss of mine estate in Oxfordshire, through the deviltry of the law and of my kinsman. When my cousin took possession, he would have got me provided for at one of the universities, to be rid of me; but I had no mind to be made a poor scholar of; for, look you, my bringing up in my father's house had been fit for a nobleman's son. I knew my Latin and my lute, could hunt and hawk with any, and if I had no practice at tilt and tourney, I made up for that lack by my skill with the rapier. Well, just when I should have gone to Italy. Germany, and France, for my education, my father died, and my mother; and I was turned out of house, wherefore I say, a curse on all bribe-taking judges and unnatural kin! I told my cousin what he might do with the dirty scholarship he offered me, and a pox on it! and swore I would hang for a thief ere I would take anything of his giving. All that I had in the world was a horse, the clothes on my body—for I would not go back to his house for others, having once left it—my rapier and dagger, and a little purse of crowns and angels. There was but one friend whom I thought it would avail me to seek, and to his house I rode, in Hertfordshire. He was a Catholic knight, whose father had sheltered my grandfather, a Protestant, in the days of Queen Mary, and now went I to him, to make myself yet more his debtor in gratitude. Though he had lived most time in France, since the Babington conspiracy, he now happened to be at home; yet he could do nothing for me, his estate being sadly diminished, and he about to sail again for the country where Catholics are safer. But he gave me a letter to my lord of Essex, by whom, as by my father, he was no less loved for being a Catholic. When I read the letter, I thought my fortune made. To London I rode, seeing myself already high in the great earl's service. At the Bell, in Carter Lane, I lodged, and so gleesome a thing it was to me to be in London, so many were the joys to be bought here, so gay the taverns, so irresistible the wenches, that ere ever I found time to present my letter to the earl I had spent my angels and crowns, besides the money I had got for my horse in Smithfield. But I was easy in mind. My lord would assuredly take me into his house forthwith, on reading my friend's letter. The next morning, as I started for Essex House, a gentleman I had met in the taverns asked me if I had heard the news. I had not; so he told me. My lord of Essex had yesterday turned his back on the queen, and clapped his hand upon his sword—you remember the time, masters—"
"Ay," said Sly. "The queen boxed his ears for it. The dispute was over the governorship of Ireland."
"My lord was in disgrace," Hal went on, "and like to be charged with high treason. So little I knew of court matters, I thought this meant his downfall, and that the letter, if seen, might work only to my prejudice and my friend's. So I burned it at the tavern fire, and wondered what a murrain to do. I went to lodge in Honey Lane, pawned my weapons, then my cloak, and finally the rest of my clothes, having bought rags in Houndsditch in the meantime. Rather than go back to Oxfordshire I would have died in the street, and was like to do so, at last; for my host, having asked for his money one night when I was drunk and touchy, got such an answer that he and his drawer cudgelled me and threw me out. So bruised I was, that I could scarce move; but I got up, and walked to the Conduit in Cheapside. There I lay down, full of aches; and then was it that Mr. Shakespeare, returning late from the tavern, happened to step on me as I lay blocking the way. What it was that moved him to stop and examine me, I know not. But, having done so, he led me to his lodgings in St. Helen's; whence, for one in my condition, it was truly no downward step to the playhouse stage—and thankful was I when he offered me that step!"
"I perceived from the manner of thy groan, when I trod on thee, 'twas no common vagabond under foot," said Shakespeare.
Later in the evening, Mr. Burbage came in, not to eat, for he had already supped at his house in Holywell Street, Shoreditch, but to join a little in the drinking.