Dear Me,

  So on to part four.  This one is gonna be a long one.  There are eighteen chapters in this part.  Basically the lion's share of the book.  So this will be a lot of fun.  WOO :)

Shakespeare: The Biography

by

Peter Ackroyd

Part Four

Chapter 37: Stay, Goe, Doe, What You Will

Shakespeare did not stay within Southampton's immediate circle.  With the disintegration of Pembroke's Men in the late summer of 1593 he joined another theatrical company.  The sequence of attributions in the playbooks of his drama suggests that he served briefly with the Earl of Sussex's Men until the formation of the Lord Chamberlain's Men in the following year.  If he did join Sussex's Men soon after leaving Pembroke's, he is likely to have toured with them in the autumn and winter of 1593.  They were at York in late August moving to Newcastle and to Winchester. At the beginning of 1594 they returned to London where the theatres had been  permitted to reopen for the Christmas season.  They performed Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus on three occasions at the Rose before the theatres were again closed down as a result of the plague.

On the last day of performance, 6 February, Titus Andronicus was entered on the Stationers' Register for publication.  Shakespeare had brought it with him from Strange's Men to Pembroke's Men and then from Pembroke's Men to Sussex's Men and on joining the Lord Chamberlain's Men the new company performed his play once more.

In the Easter season of 1594, the theatres were again opened for a short time.  For eight evenings Sussex's Men to perform at the Rose, their combined forces perhaps signalling the hard times of the previous months, and in the first week of April King Leir was performed on two occasions.  This was the play in which Shakespeare acted and which at a later date he transformed utterly.

He changed his address in this period and he started to live in Bishopsgate rather than in Shoreditch.  The two neighbourhoods are in fact only a short distance apart but Bishopsgate was more beneficial area, with less taint of the brothel and the low tavern.  He was part of the parish of St. Helen's in Bishopsgate.  This was the church he was obliged to worship. He lodged in a set of rooms within one of the tenements. 

The parish had a new water conduit which considering the sanitary conditions of the time was of great local benefit. So Bishopsgate had certain advantages over Shoreditch.  The large inns here were well known for their commodious quarters.  One of them, the Bull, had its own public stage where the Queen's Men used to perform.

If Shakespeare was not quite yet a "man of worship", he was naturally travelling in that direction.  his move to Bishopsgate may in fact have had admission into the Lord Chamberlain's Men in which he progressed from "hired man" to "sharer."  The company was established in the spring of 1594 by Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, who wanted to bring order into the general confusion of the London playing companies.  The connection between the companies and the court should never be forgotten, since the primary purpose  of the players was, to theoretically to provide entertainment for the queen.  The quality and continuity of that entertainment was now in jeopardy as a result of the plague closing all of the theatres.  So it became the Lord Chamberlain's business to provide a reliable source for the queen's entertainment.

Hunsdon advanced an ambitious scheme.  He would pratronise a new company to be called the Lord Chamberlain's Men while his son-in-law, the Lord High Admiral would patronise and support a group of players known as the Lord Admiral's Men.  One troupe would perform at south of the river while the other would perform in the northern suburbs.

Hunsdon poached the best actors from a variety of companies.  He took William from the Lord Sussex's Men.  When Shakespeare came to the company he brought his plays with him.  It turned out this was an advantage as from this time forward the Lord Chamberlain's Men were the sole producers of Shakespeare's dramas.  In the whole course of his career with the Lord Chamberlain's troupe they only performed his plays.  The company was an innovation.  It has been estimated that ninety percent of the dramatist's plays  have not survived the passage of time.  Certainly half of their texts are by Shakespeare himself, which testifies to his endurance and popularity.  They were saved and reissued. The others were simply discarded and forgotten.