without anie your lettes hindrances or molestacions during our said pleasure, but alsoe to be aidinge and assistinge to them, yf anie wronge be to them offered, And to allowe them such former Curtesies as hath bene given to men of theire place and quallitie, and alsoe what further favour you shall shewe to theise our Servauntes for our sake wee shall take kindlie at your handes. In wytnesse whereof &c. witnesse our selfe at Westminster the nyntenth day of May
per breve de priuato sigillo &c.
Of the nine players named, eight are recognizable as the
principal members of the Lord Chamberlain's company
as it stood at the end of Elizabeth's reign. Only Thomas
Pope is not included. He was near his end. He made his
will on 22 July 1603, and it was proved on 13 February 1604.
In it he names none of his fellows, unless Robert Gough,
who has a legacy, was already of the company; his interest
in the house of the Globe passed to legatees and was thus
alienated from the company. Laurence Fletcher, on the other
hand, whose name heads the list in the patent, is not discernible
as a Chamberlain's man. His inclusion becomes readily
intelligible, when it is recalled that he had headed English
actors on tour in Scotland, and had already been marked
by the personal favour of James.[1] Whether he ever joined
the company in the full sense, that is to say, the association
of actors as distinct from the body of royal servants, seems to
me very doubtful. His name is not in the Sejanus list, or
in the Folio list of Shakespearian players, and that he was
described as a 'fellow' by Phillips in 1605 hardly takes the
matter further. He may have held a relation to the King's
men analogous to that of Martin Slater to Queen Anne's
men. After 1605 nothing is heard of him.[2]
The terms of the patent imply that it was issued during a suspension of playing through plague. Probably this had followed hard upon the suspension at Elizabeth's death. The company travelled, being found at Bath, Coventry, and Shrewsbury in the course of 1602-3. A misplaced Ipswich entry of 30 May 1602 may belong to 1603. The visits to Oxford and Cambridge referred to on the title-page of the 1603 edition of Hamlet must also have taken place in this year, if they did not take place in 1601. On 2 December 1603 the company were summoned from Mortlake to perform before the King at Lord Pembroke's house of Wilton.[3]
