husband, James Baskervile. The following is her account in 1623 of certain transactions with the company. Shortly before Greene's death had died George Pulham, a 'half sharer' in the company, which is described as being in 1612 'the companie of the actors or players of the late queenes majestie Queene Anne, then vsuallie frequentinge and playinge att the signe of the Redd Bull in St. Johns Street, in Clerkenwell parishe, in the county of Middlesex'. His representatives received £40 from the company in respect of his half-share. This was under an agreement formerly made amongst the company 'concerninge the part and share of euerie one of the sharers and half sharers of the said companie according to the rate and proporcion of their shares or half shares in that behalfe'. Under the same agreement Susanna Greene, whose husband was 'one of the principall and cheif persons of the said companie, and a full adventurer, storer and sharer of in and amongst them', claimed £80, together with £37 laid out by him before his death in 'diuers necessarie prouisions' for the company. In order to get satisfaction she had to appeal to Viscount Lisle, Chamberlain of the Queen's Household, 'who hadd a kind of gouernment and suruey ouer the said players'. It was arranged that Mrs. Greene should receive a half-share in the profits until the debt was paid. By the time, however, of her marriage with Baskervile, she had only received £6. In June 1615 negotiations took place between the Baskerviles and the company, who then included Worth, Perkins, and Christopher Hutchinson, alias Beeston, by which the Baskerviles agreed to invest £57 10s. in the enterprise and to accept in discharge of their claims a pension for their joint lives of 1s. 8d. a day 'for euerye of sixe daies in the weeke wherin they should play'. The company defaulted, and in June 1616 a second settlement was made, whereby the Baskerviles invested another £38, a further pension of 2s. a day was established, and the life of Susan's son, Francis Browne (or Baskervile), was substituted for her husband's. The players were Christopher Beeston, Thomas Heywood, Ellis Worth, John Cumber, John Blaney, Francis Walpole, Robert Reynolds, William Robins, Thomas Drewe, and Emanuel Read.[1] Again they defaulted, and moreover fell into arrear for the wages of
- [Footnote: Head, he is very likely to have been the 'Browne of the Boares head'
who 'dyed very pore' in the plague of 1603 (Henslowe Papers, 59).]
- ↑ Murray, i. 193, appears to date this list c. 1612, and the allegation in the Bill (Fleay, 275) that the pensions were paid for five years supports this. But it cannot be earlier than 1613 as Read was still with the Lady Elizabeth's in that year. Nor does it include Lee, who was payee for the Queen's in 1614-16. It clearly belongs to the 1616 settlement.
