Goodale, were committed to the Counter after a brawl with Inns of Court men. Lord Berkeley apologized to the Lord Mayor on their behalf, and said that they would go to the country (App. D, Nos. xlix, l). Their other appearances are all in the country, at Bristol between 6 and 12 July 1578, where they played What Mischief Worketh in the Mind of Man, at Bath on 11 July 1578 and on another day in 1578-9, at Abingdon in 1579-80, Stratford-on-Avon in 1580-1, Maldon in 1581, Stratford-on-Avon in 1582-3, Barnstaple in 1583-4, and Bath in 1586-7. Long after they, or a later company under the same name, reappear at Coventry in 1597-8, at Leicester in 1598 before Michaelmas, at Saffron Walden in 1598-9, and at Coventry and elsewhere in 1603-10. Lord Berkeley's name is sometimes misspelt in the account-*books as 'Bartlett'.[1]
xiii. QUEEN ELIZABETH'S MEN
The origin of this company, the most famous of all the London companies during the decade of the 'eighties, can be dated with an extreme minuteness.[2] The Revels Accounts for 1582-3 record an expenditure of 20s. in travelling charges by
'Edmond Tylney Esquire Master of the office being sente for to the
Courte by Letter from M^r. Secreatary dated the x^{th} of Marche 1582.
To choose out a companie of players for her majestie.'[3]
The date then was 10 March 1583, and the business was in
the hands of Sir Francis Walsingham. Lord Chamberlain
Sussex, to whom it would naturally have fallen, was ill in
the previous September[4] and died on the following 9 June.
Walsingham's agency in the matter is confirmed in the account
of the formation of the company inserted by Edmund Howes
in the 1615 and 1631 editions of Stowe's Annales:
'Comedians and stage-players of former time were very poor and
ignorant in respect of these of this time: but being now grown very
skilful and exquisite actors for all matters, they were entertained into
the service of divers great lords: out of which companies there were
twelve of the best chosen, and, at the request of Sir Francis Walsingham,
they were sworn the queens servants and were allowed wages
and liveries as grooms of the chamber: and until this yeare 1583,
- ↑ Variorum, ii. 150. The 'lord Cartleyes players' recorded by B. S. Penley, The Bath Stage, 12, in 1580-1, 1582-3, and 1583-4 were perhaps Lord Berkeley's. Murray, ii. 27, adds other provincial notices.
- ↑ This did not prevent Chalmers from giving the date 1581 and being set right by Malone (Variorum, iii. 442). Collier, i. 247, gives 1583, but misdates Tilney's commission of 1581, and takes it for the instrument constituting the company.
- ↑ Feuillerat, Eliz. 359.
- ↑ Nicolas, Hatton, 271.
