We do not find any record of the payment for his first
masque before the Court itself now called A Satyr. In Jonson’s 1616
folio it is described as
A PARTICULAR ENTERTAINMENT OF THE QUEENE AND PRINCE THEIR
HIGHNESSE TO ALTHORPE, At the RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD SPENCER'S, On Saterday,
being the 25th of June, 1603, as they came first into the Kingdome. The Author
B. J.
By Twelfth Night of 1604, Jonson and Inigo Jones were the
source of all Court masques. The majority of the ₤3600 mentioned for January
1608 surely went for Jones’s costumes and stage sets. Jonson would also have
received a satisfying cut.
The Christmas masque, some two weeks earlier in 1604, for
the wedding of Philip Herbert and Susan de Vere, was by another hand. Neither
the text nor the identity of the author would seem to have survived.
Shakespeare himself had some part in the festivities
surrounding the new King. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men were summoned to perform
before the King, at the Earl of Pembroke’s estate, in Wilton, where he was
sheltering from the plague that was active in London.
John Hemyngs one of his Maiesties players . . . for the
paynes and expences of himself and the rest of the company in comming from
Mortelake in the countie of Surrie unto the courte aforesaid and there
presenting before his Maiestie one playe.[2]
According to Lee “The
actors travelled from Mortlake for the purpose, and were paid in the ordinary
manner by the treasurer of the royal household out of the public funds.”[3]
The only mention of payment specifically to Shaksper, during
either the reigns of Elizabeth or James, would be the March 15, 1604, order for
red cloth to make livery for the coronation procession. In the accounts of the
Master of the Great Wardrobe the following:
Red Clothe bought of sondrie persons and giuen by his
Maiestie to diuerse persons against his Maiesties sayd royall proceeding
through the Citie of London, viz :— . ..
The Chamber . . .
Fawkeners &c. &c. Red cloth
William Shakespeare iiij yardes di.
Augustine Phillipps „
Lawrence Fletcher „
John Hemminges „
Richard Burbidge „
William Slye „
Robert Armyn „
Henry Cundell „
Richard Cowley „
Being already designated “Grooms of the Chamber” — the
traditional designation of the monarch’s players they being his common servants
— they were required to have their red cloth tailored into livery uniforms. The
records of the procession show that in the end the players were left off.
Shaksper is also mentioned on at least one occasion as being
among the group of players to whom was presented payment due to the
company.
To William Kemp, William Shakespeare, and Richard Burbage,
servants to the Lord Chamberlain, upon the Council’s warrant dated at Whitehall
15 March 1594 [=1595], for two several Comedies or Interludes shown by them
before her Majesty in Christmas time last past, i.e. upon St. Stephen’s Day
[=26 December 1594] and Innocents’ Day [=28 December 1594], £13-6-8; and by way
of her Majesty’s reward £6-13-4: in all £20.[4]
The payment was to the company not to the persons named. The amount
of £20 was a considerable sum in those days.
Sharers in the properties, such as Shakespeare was, after
1599, did not get a cut of the box-office but did receive half of the proceeds from the galleries. They received a fixed amount from
each tenant in the messuage that was essentially rent. The various buildings
associated with the property around the theater were generally shops, apartments,
concession stalls, taverns and may have included a bordello at times. Those
holding “housekeeper-shares” were responsible for the upkeep of the property.
Those holding actor-shares divided the box-office and paid for the expenses of the plays and other entertainments. These expenses included payment for plays, hired players, boy-players, scenery, costumes, miscellaneous employees, etc. There is limited and mostly anecdotal evidence that Shaksper also acted occasionally which suggests that he was never an actor-sharer. Certainly, there is documentary evidence of only a partial housekeeping-share.
As
Chambers informs us, “London parish registers show a large number of players
who were certainly never sharers in any known company.” There were many
free-agents looking to pick up work when the sharers needed extra help. The
Chamberlain’s Men could well have kept the availability of Shakspere — once
himself a “hired man” ready to pick up a few extra shillings wherever he might — in their back pockets.
Estimates are that Shaksper’s partial housekeeper-share (ranging at various times between a seventh and a sixteenth share), for his investment in both the Globe and the Blackfriars properties, may have been worth as much as £200 a year. This amounts to some $60,000[5] in current U.S. dollars. Sidney Lee has estimated a further “₤15 as a share of court rewards, ₤2 to ₤3 and perquisites as a groom of the chamber,”[6] annually.
Added to his profits from his grain and wool brokering, usury and other property investments, it is no wonder that he died leaving behind property and contracts estimated at well over £300 at his death.
[1] Adams, Joseph Quincy. The Jonson Allusion-Book (1922). 64.
[2]
Chambers, E. K. William Shakespeare (1930). II.329. Citing Chamber
Account.
[3]
Lee, Sidney. A Life of William Shakespeare (1916). 686.
[4] Exchequer,
Pipe Office, Declared Accounts: Listing Shakespeare as a leading player of the
Lord Chamberlain’s company. Shakespeare Documented. https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/exchequer-pipe-office-declared-accounts-listing-shakespeare-leading-player-lord
[5] According to University of Wyoming online converter. https://www.uwyo.edu/numimage/currency.htm. The U.K. National Archives online converter estimates it at about $30,000. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/
[6]
Lee’s calculations are considered excessive in most other respects. His
estimate of payments for plays refutes all of the other evidence of the times.
Housekeeper-sharers were not paid for plays.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Edward de Vere and Marlowe’s Dido of Carthage. July 5, 2022. “It was an historical effort and an historical two years for Elizabethan theater.”
- The Character Montano, in Hamlet, and Polonius’ Famous Advice. May 25, 2022. “The reader may recall that Polonius calls upon Reynaldo to suggest to Laertes’ friends that he is privy to minor misbehaviors, at which he winks,…”
- The Death of Sir Edward Vere, son of the 17th Earl of Oxford and Anne Vavasour. May 8, 2022. “Mr. Sedgwick wrote to me for a prayer for Sir Edward Vere.”
- How Shakespeare gave Ben Jonson the Infamous Purge. November 7, 2021. “Of course, De Vere could not openly accuse Jonson of having outed him as Shakespeare.”
- Enter John Lyly. October 18, 2016. "From time to time, Shakespeare Authorship aficionados query after the name “John Lyly”. This happens surprisingly little given the outsized role the place-seeker, novelist and playwright played in the lives of the playwright William Shakespeare and Edward de Vere."
- Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
1 comment:
The 1594/5 payment was a fiddle by Oxford (as 'Shakespeare') towards the enormous expense he had incurred setting up the performance of the Comedy of Errors at Gray's Inn for lawyers' revels as recorded in Gesta Grayorum for Christmas 1594
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