uncertain. Finally, by the transfer of their plays to the Chamberlain's men, who at once revived A Shrew and Titus Andronicus, and by the incorporation of Strange's men in the same company, the original stock of Strange's plays, as distinct from the Admiral's, came together in the same hands once more. On the assumption that Shakespeare never left Strange's, it is difficult to explain either the fortunes of Titus Andronicus, or the absence from the lists of Strange's plays in Henslowe's diary of Richard III, which must have been written about 1592-4. The silence as regards Strange's both of the Court records and of Henslowe's diary during the winter of 1593-4 makes it unlikely that they were in London, and they would surely not produce a new play in the country.
Nothing further is heard of a Pembroke's company for three or four years.[1] But in 1597 one appeared in London about which we have rather full information, recently increased by Mr. Wallace's discovery of a Court of Requests suit in which they were concerned. Towards the end of February in that year Robert Shaw, Richard Jones, Gabriel Spencer, William Bird alias Borne, and Thomas Downton, who describe themselves in a suit of the following November as Pembroke's servants, together with others their 'accomplices and associates', entered into an agreement with Francis Langley to play for twelve months ending on 20 February 1598 at the Swan. Each man gave a bond of £100, which was apparently to safeguard Langley against any failure by the company as a whole or of Robert Shaw or a sufficient substitute in particular to perform during this period, or against any performance elsewhere, otherwise than 'in private places', within five miles of London. Langley found £300 for apparel and, as he claimed, making ready of the playhouse, and was to receive a moiety of the takings of the galleries and to be repaid for the apparel out of the other moiety. Of the men concerned, Jones and Downton had been Admiral's men during 1594-7, and their transference coincides with a three weeks' break in the performances of the Admiral's at the Rose from 12 February onwards. Mr. Wallace (E. S. xliii. 357) says that Shaw, Spencer, and Bird were also of the Admiral's, but of this there is no evidence. If Pembroke's had any continued life during 1594-7, they may have shared it. But this seems improbable, and on the whole I am inclined to think that they came from the Chamberlain's (q.v.). Plays were given at the Swan for some months, and Langley took £100 from the galleries, and £100 more for
- ↑ Fleay, 136, 'Pembroke's men continued to act at the Curtain from 1589 to 1597' is guess-work.
