Virtual Grub Street: Ben Jonson and William Shakspere: Records of Payment (Part 1).

The first record we would seem to have of payment to Ben Jonson by members of the Royal Court is a letter from Rowland Whyte to the Earl of Shrewsbury, on January 26, 1608.[1] The cost of Jonson’s masque Hue and Cry after Cupid was reported to be “₤300 a man” to twelve noblemen. Two of the twelve were the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery: William and Philip Herbert.

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. 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.