(1609), says, 'Tarlton, Kemp, nor Singer, nor all the litter of fooles that now come drawling behind them, never played the clowns more naturally than the arrantest sot of you all shall'. Heywood praised him as dead in the same year (H. ii. 310).
SKINNER, RICHARD. Interluders, 1547-58.
SLATER (SLAUGHTER), MARTIN. Admiral's, 1594-7; Scotland, 1599; Hertford's, 1603; Anne's, 1606; King's Revels manager, 1608; Chamber of Bristol, 1618-19. He is sometimes recorded by his Christian name only. He had a wife on 22 July 1604, and is described as a citizen and ironmonger in 1608. His name is in the Southwark token-books from 1595 to 1602, and Martin Slawter, 'a servant', was buried there on 4 August 1625 (H. ii. 310; Bodl.).
SLAUGHTER, WILLIAM. 'Ghost-name' evolved by Mr. Fleay for a supposed Queen's man.
SLEE (SLYE), JOHN. Queen Jane's, >1537; Interluders, 1539-40.
SLY, WILLIAM, was doubtless of Strange's men or the Admiral's about 1590-1, when he played in 2 Seven Deadly Sins. On 11 October 1594 Henslowe sold him 'a jewell of gowld seat with a whitte safer' for 8s. to be paid for at the rate of 1s. weekly.[1] But apparently he never paid more than 6s. 6d. An inventory of garments belonging to the Admiral's men on 13 March 1598 includes 'Perowes sewt, which W^m Sley were'.[2] Presumably this had come from Strange's men, as Sly is never traceable as a member of the Admiral's company. Probably he joined the Chamberlain's men on their formation in 1594. He is in all the lists of this company from 1598 to 1605, and in the Induction to The Malcontent (1604). He is also in the actor-list of the First Folio Shakespeare. The fact that 'Christopher Sly, old Sly's son of Burton Heath' is the name given to the beggar in The Taming of the Shrew (c. 1594), led Collier to suggest that he migrated from Warwickshire about the same time as Shakespeare. But the beggar in A Shrew is already Sly, and the name occurs in various parts of London. The Southwark token-books show a William Sly in Norman's Rents during 1588, in Horseshoe Court during 1593, and in Rose Alley during 1595 and 1596.[3] In 1605 he was named as one of the overseers and residuary executors, with a legacy, in the will of Augustine Phillips. The register of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, records the baptism on 24 September and the burial on 4 October 1606 of John, base-born son of William Sly, player, by Margaret Chambers; and the register of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, records his own burial on 16 August 1608, from Halliwell Street. His nuncupative will was made on 4 August 1608. He left legacies to Cuthbert Burbadge, and James Sandes, and the rest of his property to Robert and Cecily Browne and their daughter Jane. Robert is to have his part of the Globe, and Cecily is appointed executrix. The will was witnessed by several illiterate women, and disputed by a relative named William Sly, but proved on 24 August.[4] He was not one of the original shareholders in the Globe, but was
