ABYNGDON, HENRY. Master of Chapel, 1455-78.
ADAMS, JOHN. Sussex's, 1576; Queen's, 1583, 1588. He possibly played the clown Adam in A Looking Glass and Oberon in James IV. It would hardly be justifiable to conjecture that he lived to join Hunsdon's and play Adam in A. Y. L.
ALDERSON, WILLIAM. Chapel, 1509-13.
ALLEYN, EDWARD, was born on 1 September 1566 in the parish of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate.[1] His father was Edward Alleyn of Willen, Bucks, Innholder and porter to the Queen, who died in 1570; his mother, Margaret Townley, for whom he claimed a descent from the Townleys of Lancashire which modern genealogists hesitate to credit, re-married with one John Browne, a haberdasher, between whom and other Brownes who appear in theatrical annals no connexion can be proved. Edward Alleyn is said by Fuller in his Worthies to have been 'bred a stage player'. In formal deeds he is generally described as 'yeoman' or 'gentleman', and once, in 1595, as 'musician'.[2] In January 1583 he was one of Worcester's players; at some later date he joined the Admiral's men, and had as 'fellow' his brother John, with whom during 1589-91 he was associated in purchases of apparel. On 22 October 1592 he married Joan Woodward, step-daughter of Philip Henslowe, with whom he appears ever after in the closest business relations. A Dulwich tradition that he was already a widower probably rests on a mention of 'Mistris Allene' in an undated letter about a German tour by Richard Jones, which is commonly assigned to February 1592, but is more probably of later date.[3] Alleyn is specifically described as the Admiral's servant in the Privy Council letter of assistance to Strange's men (q.v.), with whom he travelled during the plague of 1593. Some of the letters passing between him and his wife and father-in-law during this tour are preserved at Dulwich, and are full of interesting domestic details about his white waistcoat and his orange tawny woollen stockings, the pasturing of his horse, his spinach bed, and the furnishing of his house.[4] His 'tenants' are mentioned and his 'sister Phillipes & her husband'. He had by this time a high reputation as an actor, as
- ↑ Alleyn's life is more fully dealt with than is here possible in G. F. Warner and F. Bickley, Catalogue of Dulwich MSS. (1881, 1903); G. F. Warner in D. N. B. (1885); W. Young, History of Dulwich College (1889); W. W. Greg, Henslowe Papers (1907), Henslowe's Diary, vol. ii (1908). An earlier treatment of the material is that by J. P. Collier, Memoirs of Edward Alleyn (1841), Alleyn Papers (1843). On an account by G. Steevens in Theatrical Review (1763) with a forged letter from Peele to Marlowe, cf. Lee, 646.
- ↑ Dulwich Muniments, 106.
- ↑ Cf. ch. xiv.
- ↑ Henslowe Papers, 34, from Dulwich MSS., i. 9-15; Edward to Joan Alleyn, 2 May 1593; Henslowe to Edward Alleyn, 5 July 1593; Edward to Joan Alleyn, 1 August 1593; Henslowe to Edward Alleyn, c. August 1593; Henslowe to Edward Alleyn, 14 August 1593; Henslowe to Edward Alleyn, 28 September 1593; John Pyk (Alleyn's 'boy') to Joan Alleyn, c. 1593. Later letters of 4 June and 26 September 1598 from Henslowe to Edward Alleyn and of 21 October 1603 from Joan to Edward Alleyn are in Henslowe Papers, 47, 59, 97.
