in August the same men had been at Ulm.[1] They visited Nuremberg with a letter of recommendation from their lord in November, and then settled down at Cassel for the winter.[2] But their service did not last long. On 1 March 1607 a household officer wrote to the Landgrave that the English found their salaries inadequate, and after performing the comedy of The King of England and Scotland had declared, either in jest or earnest, that it was their last play in Cassel.[3] Probably they were in earnest. Browne and Green went to Frankfort, for the last time as the Hessian comedians, on 17 March.[4] Browne's name now disappears from German records for a decade. In 1610 he was a member of the Queen's Revels syndicate in London, and on 11 April 1612 he wrote a letter to Edward Alleyn from Clerkenwell.[5] But whether Browne left them or not, the company held together for a while longer. Green was at Danzig and Elbing in the course of 1607.[6] Thereafter it seems probable that he tried a bold flight, and penetrated to the heart of Catholic Germany in Austria. In November 1607 an English company was with the archducal court of Ferdinand and Maria Anna at Gräz in Styria. A performance by them of The King of England and the Goldsmith's Wife is recorded.[7] They followed Ferdinand to Passau, where they gave The Prodigal Son and The Jew, and possibly also to the Reichstag held in January 1608 at Regensburg. By 6 February they were back at Gräz, and a letter from Ferdinand's sister, the Archduchess Maria Magdalena, then just betrothed to the Grand Duke Cosimo II of Florence, gives a lively account of their performances and of the assistance which they rendered in the revels danced at Court.[8] Their repertory included The Prodigal Son, A Proud Woman of Antwerp, Dr. Faustus, A Duke of Florence and a Nobleman's Daughter, Nobody and Somebody, Fortunatus, The Jew, King Louis and King Frederick of Hungary, A King of Cyprus and a Duke of Venice, Dives and Lazarus.[9] It is not absolutely certain that the company referred to in these notices was Green's. No name is in fact mentioned. But the probability suggested by the resemblance of the above
- ↑ Mentzel, 53; Meissner in Sh.-Jahrbuch, xix. 125; Archiv, xiii. 320; Duncker, 268. The Ottonium was named after Maurice's son Otto, the friend of Prince Henry Frederick, who paid a visit to England in 1611 (Rye, 141).
- ↑ Archiv, xiv. 124.
- ↑ Cohn, lviii; R. P. Wülcker in Sh.-Jahrbuch, xiv. 360.
- ↑ Mentzel, 53.
- ↑ Henslowe Papers, 63.
- ↑ Bolte, 35.
- ↑ This might be Heywood's King Edward IV.
- ↑ F. von Hurter, Gesch. Kaiser Ferdinands II, v. 395.
- ↑ The Proud Woman of Antwerp might be the lost piece by Day and Haughton.
