A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare. Frederick Gard Fleay
in the published copies, under the censorship of the Master of the Revels), for the entertainment of the Essex conspirators. They consequently "travelled," having previously produced Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well, a considerable portion of which is of much earlier date (c. 1592), but which, in the Parolles scenes, has distinct allusion to Marston's Jack Drum's Entertainment of the preceding year, and to the "war of the theatres," not yet concluded. They also acted the play of Cromwell, Earl of Essex, by W. S., in which the parallel between the careers of Cromwell and the lately executed Earl is strongly brought out. I believe W. S. to have been William Sly, the well-known actor of the Chamberlain's company. In their travels this year the company visited the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where they performed Julius Cæsar and Hamlet. The version of this last play so acted was not the old play by Kyd, but one hurriedly remodelled by Shakespeare, which we possess in an imperfect form in the first Quarto. Among the Shakespearian additions occur passages alluding to the theatrical war and the popularity of the Chapel Children, to which the travelling of the company is attributed. This proves that Shakespeare was one of the strolling detachment. Jonson seized on this defence in his Poetaster, and represented that the travelling was due to the inefficiency of their play-writers, and makes Tucca tell Histrio, the Globe player, that if they will employ Marston, who "pens high lofty in a new stalking strain," they "shall not need to travel with thy pumps full of gravel after a blind jade and a hamper, and stalk upon boards and barrel-heads to an old cracked trumpet." The travels, however, were not confined to England. In October they had reached Aberdeen, where they received the title of "the King's Servants," and Laurence Fletcher, their manager, was admitted burgess of guild of the borough. In all probability a version of the old Macbeth play was produced before King James—such a version as that of Hamlet acted at the Universities. Its plot would fit more aptly with the circumstances of the Gowry conspiracy of 1600 than that of Richard II. would with Essex, and anything more pleasing to the King and people of Scotland could not have been selected. During the absence of this strolling detachment Jonson's Poetaster was produced, containing a vigorous attack on the Globe company; and they, in Shakespeare's absence, hired Dekker to reply in his Satiromastix, which, with the aid of the Paul's children, they represented in the public theatre of the Globe, and in the private convocation-room of Paul's. During this same absence, on 8th September Shakespeare's father was buried at Stratford. He apparently died intestate. After the return from Scotland, the appearance of Shakespeare's name, as fellow-contributor to Chester's Love's Martyr with Jonson, Marston, and Chapman, marks the conclusion of the theatrical quarrel, and the reconciliation of all the principal combatants, except Dekker. But although this book bears the date 1601, it could not, I think, have been issued earlier than March 1601–2, after the production of Twelfth Night on February 2 at the Middle Temple. Such presentations as this at Inns of Court were usually of new plays; and there is in this play fairly conclusive internal evidence that the theatrical quarrel was not over when it was acted. With regard to Shakespeare's other play of this year, Troylus and Cressida, it was as clearly produced after the reconciliation. The entry in S. R., "as it is acted by the Lord Chamberlain's men," is absolutely conclusive that it was still on the stage on 1st February 1602–3, and was therefore produced, in all probability, in the later half of 1602. In this play the Prologue, the love story of Troylus, and all the scenes after v. 4, are taken from the old play of c. 1593, in which Shakespeare only wrote as a coadjutor. The Prologue and the later scenes—v. 5–10—are manifestly by the second pen in the main, and printed by mistake, the end of the revised version being shown by the repetition of the lines "Why, but hear you," &c., at the end of v. 3. That the 1602 version of the play was intended to refer to the theatrical quarrel of 1599–1602 is clear from the line "Rank Thersites with his mastick tooth," who is evidently Dekker, of whom Jonson says in the Poetaster (iii. 1), "He has one of the most overflowing rank wits in Rome; he will slander any man that breathes if he disgust him." Dekker had produced the SatiroMASTIX shortly before Troylus was acted; and it has been noted that he was not one of the contributors to Chester's Martyr. I believe the Troylus play to have been the one in which Shakespeare put down all the University men, and purged Ben Jonson's pride, as we learn that he did from the University play of The Return from Parnassus, acted in January 1602–3; the character of Ajax, "Slow as the elephant, into whom nature hath so crowded humours," &c. (i. 2), hits off Jonson exactly, and is a good-humoured reply to Jonson's self-estimate as Crites in Cynthia's Revels (ii. 1), "A creature of a most divine temper, one in whom the elements and humours are peaceably met," &c.
In May 1602 Gilbert Shakespeare (his brother being probably in London) concluded the purchase on his behalf of 107 acres of land in Old Stratford, bought of the Coombes for £320, and on 28th September Walter Getley transferred to him (not in person), at a Court Baron of the Manor of Rowington, a cottage and garden in Chapel Lane. The lady of the manor retained possession until personal completion of the purchase. The Chamberlain's company were re-admitted to act at Court in the winter, not having performed there in 1601–2, probably on account of the Richard II. affair. They acted, however, only two plays. In the following March, 1603, Shakespeare remodelled The Taming of the Shrew by the rewriting of the Katherine and Petruchio scene. The play before he altered it was one written, I think, by Lodge about 1596, and founded on the old Kyd play of 1589 acted by Pembroke's men. On March 29 Queen Elizabeth died, and whether it be due to the different requirements of the new Court, or to a natural development of Shakespeare's mind, there can be no doubt that a marked change of style and method took place at this epoch in his work. It should not be forgotten that the primary object for which theatres were established was that stage-players "might be the better enabled and prepared to show such plays to her [or his] Majesty as they shall be required," and that the "honest recreation" of the citizens was a secondary matter. For proof of this see the Privy Council documents quoted by Collier in his Annals, passim, and specially in i. 309. Hence the succession of a new sovereign had greater influence on the tone of the drama than we can well realise. In Shakespeare's case it inaugurated a period in which Tragedy was predominant in place of Comedy and History. All his greatest tragedies were produced during the next four years 1603–6.
Before quitting the reign of Elizabeth, I call attention to the significant fact that the Chamberlain's company performed at Court before the accession of James exactly twenty-eight plays, and that the number of Shakespeare's plays known to have been produced during the same period by that company is twenty, and of other men's eight. I do not press this exact agreement as showing absolute identity between the two lists; one or two of the Court plays may have been merely revivals, one or two of the stage plays may not have been brought before her Majesty at all, but I think the following inferences justifiable. The Queen, evidently as a general rule, only allowed new plays, or plays so largely reconstructed as to be reckoned as new, to be presented to her. So far as the Chamberlain's company were concerned, these plays consisted on an average of two of Shakespeare's and one of another author's—these numbers, however, being rather exceeded in the earlier years, and diminished in the later. Shakespeare consequently was to this company in the same position as Greene to the Queen's men before his time, purveying to their use "more than four other," which explains his rapid advance in popularity and accumulation of property. And finally, the number of plays supposed to have been lost has been grossly exaggerated by modern critics, who have based their calculations on the Diary of Henslowe, whose policy was quantity rather than quality, and who was continually deceived by his hack-writers presenting to his illiterate ignorance old plays new vamped as if they were completely new.
In 1603 the plague raged in London. In March before the Queen's death, the theatres were closed, and in the license of May 19, which adopted the Chamberlain's men as the King's Servants (a title already conferred on them in Scotland in 1601), a special clause was inserted allowing them to act "when the infection of the plague shall decrease." The infection did not decrease, yet the theatres were reopened, but probably only for a few days. Doubtless the authorities closed them on account of the continuance of the sickness. The plays acted at this reopening were probably The Miseries of Enforced Marriage, by George Wilkins, a new author, which was founded on contemporaneous events in Yorkshire, and certainly the perfected Hamlet as we now have it in the Folio. The older version, which had been entered S. R. on 26th July 1602, was now published, having probably been "stayed," as was frequently the case with plays printed by J. Roberts (for example The Merchant of Venice, Troylus and Cressida), but not till the copyright had