David Kathman, Grocers, Goldsmiths, And Drapers

An earlier version of this paper was written for William Ingram’s theater history seminar at the2002 meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America. I am grateful to William Ingram, HerbertBerry, David Bevington, Alan Nelson, and Bill Lloyd for comments and help of various kinds, andto Peter Blayney for his extensive comments and his encyclopedic knowledge of the London liverycompanies. In London I received indispensable help from the staff of the Guildhall Library, PennyFussell at Drapers’ Hall, David Beasley at Goldsmiths’ Hall, Ursula Carlyle at Mercers’ Hall, DavidWickham at Clothworkers’ Hall, and James Sewell at the Corporation of London Records Office.All errors are, of course, my own.

1 Guilds were religious organizations, while the London livery companies are secular organiza-tions whose members, unlike guild members, are free of the City of London and authorized to freeapprentices. The distinction was an important one in the sixteenth century, despite the modern prac-tice of using the terms guild and livery company interchangeably. See Valerie Hope, Clive Birch, andGilbert Torry, The Freedom: The Past and Present of the Livery, Guilds, and City of London (Buckingham:Barracuda Books, 1982).

2 See Jean Robertson and D. J. Gordon, A Calendar of Dramatic Records in the Books of the LiveryCompanies of London 1485–1640 (Oxford: Malone Society, 1954); William Ingram, The Business ofPlaying (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell UP, 1992), 28–30; Roslyn Knutson, Playing Companies andCommerce in Shakespeare’s Time (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001); and E.A.J. Honigmann andSusan Brock, Playhouse Wills, 1558–1642 (Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 1993), whichgathers the wills of many freemen in one convenient volume.

Grocers, Goldsmiths, and Drapers: Freemen andApprentices in the Elizabethan Theater

DAVID KATHMAN

OVER THE PAST TWO CENTURIES theater historians have gradually becomeaware that some people active in the English professional theater of the six-

teenth and early-seventeenth centuries were freemen—that is, members of liverycompanies, such as the Grocers and the Goldsmiths, which had developed out ofmedieval guilds centered around specific trades.1 The role of guilds and livery com-panies in the development of medieval English drama has long been recognized, ashas their key role in the production of London Midsummer shows and LordMayor’s pageants. In recent years scholars have also uncovered valuable informa-tion about individual freemen on the professional stage.2 Even so, most theater his-torians continue to believe that only a handful of professional players were free oflivery companies, that the apprenticeship system used by professional playing com-panies bore only an informal resemblance to that used by livery companies, andthat the details of the binding of specific theatrical apprentices have vanished in themists of time.

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In fact, none of these assumptions are true. Many professional players—at leasta few in every major London troupe—were free of livery companies, as were a largepercentage of managers associated with children’s playing companies. The Londonlivery companies played a crucial role in the economics of the professional theater,particularly its apprenticeship system. Apprentice players were typically bound tomasters who were free of companies such as the Drapers, Goldsmiths, or Grocers,and they were sometimes freed as members of those same companies despite beingtrained entirely for the stage. Whether or not they were freed, quite a few of theseapprentices became adult players. The surviving records of these companies are arich source of previously unknown biographical information, both about the play-ers themselves and about their apprentices. In some cases, these records allow us torescue the names of boy-players from oblivion.

This essay is organized as follows. First, I present some background about theLondon livery companies and their apprenticeship system. I then offer an overviewof how this apprenticeship system worked in the professional theater, as describedin hitherto-unpublished testimony from a seventeenth-century Chancery lawsuit.Following this discussion are illustrations of how the system affected the careers oftwo professional players: John Heminges of the Chamberlain’s/King’s Men andWilliam Perry, who led a series of traveling companies. The essay’s longest sectionlists more than fifty theatrical freemen and summarizes their activities, includingbinding of apprentices; roughly half of these summaries contain previouslyunknown documentary evidence, and most of the rest gather recently publishedfacts not found in the standard references. I conclude the paper with a look at thecareer of John Rhodes, a freeman of the Drapers who was involved with Londontheater for roughly four decades, and who bound some of the last apprentices toappear onstage, including Edward Kynaston. Collectively, this information providesa fairly clear picture of a system that persisted for more than a century but whichhas been largely overlooked by theater historians.

LIVERY COMPANIES, FREEMEN, AND APPRENTICES

In 1927 T. W. Baldwin wrote of the Elizabethan theater that “most of theseactors had been tradesmen, etc., and, as such, already members of gilds. Theymight thus formally apprentice these boys to their own trades, probably with theadded advantage in London of giving them civic status as gild members, which oth-erwise they might not have.”3 Three years later E. K. Chambers objected, claimingthat “the courts of the gilds would have a responsibility for seeing to it that the

SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY2

3 T. W. Baldwin, The Organization and Personnel of the Shakespearean Company (Princeton, NJ:Princeton UP, 1927), 37n.


training was in their own craft.”4 Baldwin’s conjecture turns out to be quite accu-rate, although he never confirmed it in the records of the livery companies.Chambers’s assertion to the contrary, accepted by generations of scholars, isdirectly contradicted by the evidence.

There were (and are) four ways for a man to become free of a livery company:servitude, patrimony, redemption, and translation. In the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies servitude was by far the most common method: a young man would bebound for a set number of years as apprentice to a master who was free of the com-pany, usually residing with the master while learning his craft. Apprentices whocompleted their terms could pay a fee to become free of the company, after whichthey were entitled to bind their own apprentices. Patrimony and redemption wereless common, but they still entitled a person to bind apprentices. Any son of a free-man could claim freedom in his father’s company by patrimony once he turnedtwenty-one and paid a fee, while a limited number of those who were sufficientlywell off (and well connected) could purchase their freedom by redemption, as longas the company approved. On occasion a freeman of one livery company couldtransfer to a different company, a process known as translation.

Modern scholars have tended to assume that the occupation of a freeman andhis apprentices necessarily corresponded to his livery company—that a freeman ofthe Goldsmiths, for example, must have made his living working with gold andmust have trained his apprentices in that craft. In fact, freemen were under noobligation to practice the trades of their companies, and a substantial minoritymade their living in other ways.5 Furthermore, a freeman could train his appren-tices in his actual profession, whatever that might be, and they could still be legallybound and freed by his livery company. It was thus theoretically possible for a boyto be apprenticed and freed as a Goldsmith, for example, without his ever havinghandled a piece of gold.6

After 1562 apprenticeship in England was governed by the “Acte towchingdyvers Orders for Artificers Laborers Servants of Husbandrye and Apprentices,”which codified many, though not all, of the customs prevalent in London, where

FREEMEN AND APPRENTICES IN ELIZABETHAN THEATER 3

4 E. K. Chambers, William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems, 2 vols. (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1930), 2:85.

5 The Tolley case in King’s Bench (1615) affirmed the right of a freeman to practice whatever tradehe chose; see Sir Henry Calthrop, Reports of special cases touching several customes and liberties of the cityof London (London: Abel Roper, 1670), 9–17, abstracted in Tudor Economic Documents: Being SelectDocuments Illustrating the Economic and Social History of Tudor England, R. H. Tawney and Eileen Power,eds. (London: Longmans, 1924), 378–83.

6 In this essay, the term Goldsmith (capitalized) signifies a freeman of the Company of Goldsmiths,whatever he actually did for a living, while goldsmith (lowercased) signifies someone who made a liv-ing working with gold; similarly with freemen of other companies, such as Grocers, Mercers, etc.


apprentices were generally not allowed to marry, were not to be bound before agefourteen or after age twenty-one, and had to be bound for a minimum of sevenyears.7 The 1562 statute specified that apprentices should not be freed before agetwenty-four, but it was not uncommon for London apprentices to be freed at twen-ty-one or twenty-two. The law also specified that any householder over the age oftwenty-four who practiced “any Arte Misterie or Manuell Occupacion” could bindapprentices, and in fact many apprenticeships did not involve livery companies at all.In London, however, livery companies and associated institutions such as theMayor’s Court provided an efficient means of enforcing the regulations, andfreemen of these companies had practical advantages over non-freemen.

It was these advantages that made membership in livery companies attractive forprofessional players. In the Elizabethan theater, apprentices played the female roles,but the apprenticeship system also served as a training ground, and many appren-tices went on to become sharers or hired men.8 A talented theatrical apprenticecould be quite valuable; in 1632 the contract of the boy Stephen Hammerton wassaid to be worth £30, and in 1635 John Shank testified that he had paid £40 for theboy John Thompson.9 Apprentices in the major London playing companies weregenerally bound to freemen of livery companies such as the Grocers or Goldsmiths,either a freeman who was himself a player or a third party who agreed to let hisapprentice be trained as a player.

The most explicit description of the system appears in a series of Chancerydepositions taken in 1655, during the period when the professional theater wasoutlawed in England. The case in question, de Caine v. Wintershall, arose from adispute over an £80 bond made in 1624 between Richard Gunnell, part-owner ofthe Fortune playhouse, and six sharers in the company that played there, includingAndrew Cane (who adopted the variant name “de Caine” late in life).10 Gunnell


7 The complete text of the statute (5 Eliza. c.4) can be found in The Statutes of the Realm (Buffalo,NY: William S. Hein and Co., 1993), 4.1.414–22, a reprint of the original 1810–28 edition. Therestrictions about apprentices not marrying and not being bound before age fourteen were notspelled out in the statute, but they were enforced in London.

8 Some scholars have recently disputed the idea that female roles were played by boys, suggestingthat adult male sharers took these roles instead. However, in an article titled “How Old WereShakespeare’s Boy-Actors?” (forthcoming in Shakespeare Survey 57), I show that the players perform-ing significant female roles before the Restoration were between twelve and twenty-one years old inevery case for which evidence exists.

9 See G. E. Bentley, “The Salisbury Court Theater and Its Boy Players,” Huntington LibraryQuarterly 40 (1997): 129–49, esp. 141; and Glynne Wickham, Herbert Berry, and William Ingram,eds., English Professional Theatre, 1530–1160 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000), 225.

10 The bill and answer in this case (PRO C10/32/31) are dated 24 October and 1 October (for 1November) 1654, and are discussed by Leslie Hotson in The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage(Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1928), 52–54. Hotson was not aware of the depositions in the case,


died in 1634, but two decades later his daughter Margaret, having married theplayer William Wintershall, sued Cane for £40, which she claimed he owed herfrom the thirty-year-old bond. Cane countersued, and on 1 February 1655, Cane’slawyer took depositions from five witnesses: Ellis Worth, William Hall, JohnWright, and Henry Hammerton (all former players), and Edward de Caine(Andrew Cane’s son).11 Worth, Hall, and Hammerton agreed that players inLondon companies frequently committed themselves to bonds such as the oneunder dispute. These bonds obligated the parties to pay a penalty at a certain date,but their real purpose was to keep the company together, the money beingdemanded only if a player went to act at another playhouse. According to Worth’sdeposition,

the reason why the Condicion of such bonds were made for payment of money asaforesaid & not with Condicion to keepe the players together . . . was for that ittwas held vnlawfull to bynd players or Actors with such Expresse Condicion thatthey should play at such a house or the like.12

In order to show that such discrepancies between the letter and the spirit of con-tracts were commonplace, Cane’s lawyer also asked his witnesses about the status oftheatrical apprentices. Worth’s answer deserves to be quoted in full:

That hee doeth knowe that itt was an vsuall vsage & Custome with & Amongestthe Masters & Chiefe Actors of the ffortune Playhouse aforesaid & otherPlayhouses in and aboute London, to take youthes & boyes to bee theirApprentices or Covenant servants to serve & Abide with them for Certaine num-ber of yeares And hee sayeth that the said Masters and Cheife Actors Did vsuallybynde such boyes & youthes as Apprentices to themselfes or some others thatwere freemen of some trade or other And that such boyes and servants Did vsu-ally Acte & play partes in Comidies and Tragidyes att the fortune & other playhouses although such youthes or boyes were not bound to Acte playes byCovenant in Expresse words. And this Deponent knoweth that some of thoseboyes or youthes were made free of such particuler Trades as their severall Mastersvsed besides playinge. . . .

John Wright adds the following details:


but two of these were cited in passing (and somewhat inaccurately) by C. J. Sisson in “The Red BullCompany and the Importunate Widow,” Shakespeare Survey 7 (1954): 57–68, esp. 67n.

11 The depositions are PRO C24/785/53 (in Part 1); they are dated 1 February 1654, but fromthe date of the bill and answer, it is clear that this means 1654/5.

12 In this and all other quotations from these depositions, I have expanded abbreviations butotherwise retained the original spelling. For ease of reading, I have also omitted words and phrasesthat the scribe struck out, and have incorporated interlineations into the text.


And this Deponent sayeth that hee himselfe was bound as an Apprentice to thesaid partie [Cane] for A Certaine number of yeares to Learne the trade of AGoldsmith, And hee sayeth that hee this Deponent Did vsually Acte & play partesin Comidyes & Tragedies in the tyme of his Apprenticshipp and was afterwardsmade free of the Trade of A Goldsmith which the said partie vsed. . . .

Everything Wright says here is supported by the documentary record. TheGoldsmiths’ apprentice book for this period shows that Andrew Cane, a freeman ofthat company, bound John Wright as his apprentice on 27 November 1629 for aterm of eight years. The cast list in the 1632 quarto of Shakerley Marmion’sHolland’s Leaguer shows Wright playing Milliscent (a female role) alongside Cane,who played Trimalchio. Wright was freed as a Goldsmith on 13 March 1646, withWorth certifying his service, since Cane was then in the army.13

Wright’s apprenticeship to a livery-company freeman was hardly an isolatedincident. At least a dozen apprentices bound to professional players in livery com-panies are known to have performed onstage—a remarkable number consideringthe fragmentary state of our knowledge of boy-players and the haphazard survivalof apprenticeship records for these companies.14 Numerous other apprenticesbound to such freemen lack a documented stage career but probably did appear onthe boards. It may well be that the apprentices named in livery-company recordsrepresent only a fraction of the servants bound by theatrical freemen.

Let us consider two professional players who were free of livery companies: JohnHeminges, free of the Grocers, and William Perry, free of the Drapers. In some waysthey are a study in contrasts: Heminges was a member of the principal Londontroupe for more than three decades, while Perry operated on the fringes of profes-sional theater, albeit over a similar span of time. Together, the careers of these menillustrate the relationship between London livery companies and the theater’sapprenticeship system.

JOHN HEMINGES, CITIZEN AND GROCER

John Heminges, a longtime member of the King’s Men and famous as the co-compiler (with Henry Condell) of the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio, was baptized


13 See the Company of Goldsmiths, Apprentice Book 1, fol. 294v; G. E. Bentley, The Profession ofPlayer in Shakespeare’s Time (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1984), 280–81; and the Goldsmiths’ CourtBook X, 13 March 1646. All Goldsmiths’ records cited here are deposited at Goldsmiths’ Hall inLondon and are quoted with the permission of the company and its librarian, David Beasley.

14 Of the twelve great livery companies of London, five (the Mercers, Drapers, Fishmongers,Salters, and Clothworkers) have no significant apprenticeship records before 1603, and another three(the Goldsmiths, Merchant Taylors, and Haberdashers) have no apprenticeship records before 1580.The records that do survive vary widely in the amount of information they provide.


in Droitwich, Worcestershire, on 25 November 1566. On 25 May 1578 he wasapprenticed to James Collins, Grocer, for nine years, and he was sworn as a freemanof the Grocers on 24 April 1587.15 He may have been connected with the Queen’sMen around this time, for on 10 March 1588 he was licensed to marry RebeccaKnell (née Edwards), the sixteen-year-old widow of Queen’s Man William Knell,who had been killed by a fellow actor, John Towne, at Thame, Oxfordshire, while ontour the previous year.16 The couple settled in St. Mary Aldermanbury and had atleast thirteen children between 1590 and 1611. At the same time, Heminges wasacting, first with Strange’s Men by 1593, then with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men,probably from the company’s founding in 1594. Heminges also became the businessmanager of the Chamberlain’s Men (which became the King’s Men in 1603), serv-ing in that capacity until his death in 1630.

While the outlines of Heminges’s acting career are well known, his activities asa member of the Grocers’ Company have gone largely unnoticed. On 13 December1608 John Heminges,“citizen and grocer of London,” was admitted as one of the tenseacoal-meters of London, replacing Stationer John Keale, and soon afterward hetook John Jackson as his deputy.17 (Five years later Heminges and Jackson bothserved as trustees for William Shakespeare’s purchase of the Blackfriars gatehouse.)The seacoal-meters, all citizens, were charged with measuring all coal imported toLondon, but the position, which Heminges held until 1626, was actually just alucrative sinecure. In 1621 he was admitted into the livery of the Grocers’ Companyalong with Thomas Tickner, paying £20 for the privilege.18


15 J. M. Nosworthy,“A Note on John Heminge,” The Library, 5th ser., 3 (1949): 287–88; Grocers’Wardens’ Accounts 1555–1578 (Guildhall Library MS 11571/6), fol. 473v, and MS 11571/7, fol.220v. There is some confusion in the records of the Grocers’ Company, for a “Iohn Hemynge. Lateapprentice to Roger Gwyn” was also made free of the Grocers on 5 November 1595, one weekbefore the player John Heminges bound his first apprentice (Guildhall Library MS 11571/8, fol.503r). There is no record of a John Heminges being bound to Roger Gwyn, but a “Iohn Herringe”had been bound to Humphrey Westerne in 1587 and transferred to John Shere/Shore in 1593.This is unlikely to have been the player, who got married in 1588 and was a sharer in Strange’s Menin 1593, since London apprentices were generally forbidden to marry. Most likely the 1595 recordis a slip by the clerk for John Herring, perhaps because Heminges the player had recently been inGrocers’ Hall to prepare for binding his apprentice.

16 Mark Eccles, Shakespeare in Warwickshire (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1961), 82. The connec-tion to the Queen’s Men is strengthened by Heminges’s grant of arms in 1629, which calls him “oflong tyme Servant to Queen Elizabeth of happie Memory, also to King James hir Royal Successorand to King Charles his Sonne” (E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 4 vols. [Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1923], 2:321).

17 Corporation of London, Repertory 28, fol. 311v; Corporation of London, Journal 27, fol. 350v

(see also Mark Eccles, “Elizabethan Actors II: E–J,” Notes & Queries 236 [1991]: 454–61, esp. 458);and Corporation of London Repertory 40, fol. 182r.

18 Grocers’ Orders of the Court of Assistants (Guildhall Library MS 11588/3), 190.


More pertinent for our purposes is the fact that, between 1595 and 1628 therecords of the Grocers show Heminges binding ten apprentices. Most of theseapprentices ended up as actors with the Chamberlain’s/King’s Men, and one ofthem explicitly stated that he had been trained in “l’arte d’une Stageplayer” duringhis apprenticeship.19 Following is a chronological list of Heminges’s apprentices,based on transcriptions originally made by Peter W. M. Blayney and subsequentlychecked by me at the Guildhall Library. For each apprentice I give the date of hisbinding, the length of his term, a citation to the binding record in the Grocers’Wardens’ Accounts at the Guildhall Library, and a brief discussion of what weknow about his stage career.

Thomas Belte, bound on 12 November 1595 for nine years (MS 11571/8, fol.508r). A “T. Belt” played a servant and Panthea (a female role) in The Seven DeadlySins, the surviving “plot” of which was dated by W. W. Greg as belonging to Strange’sMen in 1590. However, an impressive amount of circumstantial evidence indicatesthat this plot actually belonged to the Chamberlain’s Men around 1597–98, and infact this record and the next one are key pieces of that evidence.20 This boy mayhave been the son of a Norwich city wait (i.e., a municipal musician) of the samename who with his wife and children was expelled from Norwich on 16 November1594, almost exactly a year before Heminges bound Belte.21

Alexander Cooke, bound on 26 January 1597 for eight years; freed 22 March1609 (MS 11571/8, fol. 545v). Cooke is known to have acted with theChamberlain’s-King’s Men from at least 1603, and he refers to Heminges as his“master” in his will.22 He is generally taken to be the “Saunder” who played QueenVidena and Progne, wife of Tereus, in The Seven Deadly Sins; if so, he must have doneso in 1597 or later. Cooke was freed as a Grocer on 22 March 1609 and boundWalter Haynes as his apprentice on 28 March 1610.23 He died in 1614.

George Burgh, bound on 4 July 1610 for eight years (MS 11571/9, fol. 344r).This boy is probably the George Birch who married the daughter of King’s ManRichard Cowley in 1619 ( just after his apprenticeship would have ended) and actedfor the King’s Men between that date and 1625. He is probably also the “Richard


19 See Corporation of London Record Office, Mayor’s Court Original Bills, MC1–53, membrane54. See also Bentley, Profession of Player, 122; and note 33 below.

20 See David Kathman,“Reconsidering The Seven Deadly Sins,” Early Theatre 7.1 (2004): 13–44.21 See David Galloway, ed., Records of Early English Drama: Norwich, 1540–1642 (Toronto and

Buffalo: U of Toronto P, 1984), 107.22 PRO B10/311, dated 3 January 1614 and proved 4 May 1614. The will is printed by

Honigmann and Brock, 94–96.23 See Guildhall Library MS 11571/9, fol. 291v (Cooke’s freedom); MS 11571/9, fol. 340v

(Haynes’s binding).


Birche” (otherwise unknown) who played Lady Politic Would-Be in Volpone andDoll Common in The Alchemist for the King’s Men sometime between 1616 and1619.24

John Wilson, bound on 18 February 1611 for eight years; freed 29 October 1621(MS 11571/9, fol. 385v). Born in Faversham, Kent, on 5 April 1595, Wilson was notquite sixteen when he was apprenticed to Heminges.25 He appears as “Jacke Wilson”in the Folio version of Much Ado About Nothing, playing Balthasar and singing a song;he also wrote many songs for the King’s Men beginning around 1614. He was freedas a Grocer on 29 October 1621, and ten months later, on 28 August 1622, he tookhis first apprentice, Zachary Rowleffe.26 On 21 October 1622, Wilson was appoint-ed one of the waits of the City of London, and in 1635 he became a lutenist in theKing’s Musicke, eventually taking his bachelor’s degree at Oxford in 1644 andbecoming a professor of music there in 1656.

Nicholas Crosse, bound on 25 May 1614 for ten years (MS 11571/10, fol.111v). It is tempting to think that this boy was related to the Samuel Crosse listedin the Shakespeare First Folio as one of the principal actors “in all these Playes.” Hemay be the Nicholas Cross who was a chorister at St. Paul’s in 1607, given that sev-eral members of the King’s Men had previously been choristers at St. Paul’s and/orthe Chapel Royal; and he is probably the “Nick” who played Barnavelt’s wife in aKing’s Men production of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt in August 1619.27

Richard Sharpe, bound on 21 February 1616 for eight years (MS 11571/10,fol. 198v). Sharpe played the title role in Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, accordingto the 1623 quarto—presumably not in the original 1612 production but in therevival of 1619–23. The 1679 Beaumont and Fletcher folio lists him as a cast mem-


24 See G. E. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 7 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941–68),2:377; James A. Riddell, “Some Actors in Ben Jonson’s Plays,” Shakespeare Studies 5 (1969): 285–98.The annotator who wrote the name “Richard Birche” in a copy of the 1616 Jonson folio describedby Riddell was probably not connected with the King’s Men and thus may have been mistakenabout Birche’s first name. He may have conflated Birche and Richard Sharpe, for whom see below.

25 See Andrew Ashbee and David Lasocki, A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians,1485–1714 (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998), 1157; and Stanley Sadie, ed., The New Grove Dictionaryof Music and Musicians, 2d ed., 30 vols. (New York: Grove, 2001), 27:423. Each of these sources con-tains some information that the other lacks, though neither is aware of Wilson’s apprenticeship orhis freedom of the Grocers.

26 Guildhall Library MS 11571/10, fol. 466r (Wilson’s freedom); MS 11571/11, fol. 11r

(Rowleffe’s binding). Rowleffe apparently never gained his freedom, but on 6 August 1633 Wilsonfreed another man, John Atkinson, for whom there is no record of apprenticeship. Atkinson mayhave replaced Rowleffe at some point as Wilson’s apprentice without being entered in the records.

27 Edwin Nungezer, A Dictionary of Actors and of Other Persons Associated with the Public Representationof Plays in England before 1642 (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1929), 108; Bentley, Jacobean and CarolineStage, 2:516.


ber in thirteen plays performed by the King’s Men between 1616 and 1623 (almostexactly the period covered by his apprenticeship), though no specific roles aregiven. His first known male role was “Parthenius a free-man of Caesars” in TheRoman Actor, produced by the King’s Men in 1626; thenceforth he played male rolesuntil his death on 25 January 1632.28

TThhoommaass HHoollccoommbbee, bound on 22 April 1618 for eight years (MS 11571/10, fol.292v). The 1679 Beaumont and Fletcher folio lists Holcombe in the cast of sixKing’s Men plays between 1617 and 1622, though again without specifiying anyroles. However, a stage direction in the manuscript of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt,performed by the King’s Men in August 1619, indicates that “T: Holc” played theProvost’s wife.29 He was married some time before 24 July 1624, when he had a sonbaptized at St. Giles Cripplegate, but he was buried there on 1 September 1625,most likely a victim of the plague. It is interesting to note that John Shanks of theKing’s Men (who was free of the Weavers) included Holcombe in 1635 among the“other boys” for whom he had paid his share of £200 since joining the company, eventhough Holcombe was formally bound to Heminges. This suggests that the sharers(or perhaps just the freemen) split the expense of obtaining talented boys, no mat-ter to whom those boys were bound.30

RRoobbeerrtt PPaallllaanntt, bound on 9 February 1620 for eight years (MS 11571/10, fol.381v). Pallant was baptized on 28 September 1605, son of the journeyman actorRobert Pallant who appears in the Seven Deadly Sins cast list alongside Belte andCooke. The 1623 Duchess of Malfi quarto lists the younger Pallant as playing Cariola,a female role, alongside Richard Sharpe. He appears in a few other records of theKing’s Men in the 1620s.31

WWiilllliiaamm TTrriiggggee, bound on 20 December 1625 for twelve years; freed 11 July1632, perhaps by patrimony (MS 11571/11, fol. 139v). Trigge was one of the lead-ing actors of female roles for the King’s Men in the late 1620s, playing at least fivefemale roles between 1626 and 1632.32 On 11 August 1631, ten months after JohnHeminges’s death, Trigge petitioned the Mayor’s Court to be discharged from hisindenture of apprenticeship, now in the hands of Heminges’s son and executor,


28 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:569–71.29 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:475.30 See Glynne Wickham, Herbert Berry, and William Ingram, eds., English Professional Theatre,

1530–1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000), 225.31 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:519–20. As Bentley notes, there has been some confusion

because the 1623 Duchess of Malfi quarto brackets Pallant’s name with the Doctor and court officersas well as Cariola, seeming to indicate that he played all these roles, a physical impossibility. The con-fusion probably arose when the compositor setting the quarto saw Pallant’s name next to Cariola andmistakenly thought it also belonged with the two adjacent names, which had no players listed.

32 These roles are listed by Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:604–6.


William. In the petition, written in legal French, Trigge says that he was apprenticedto Heminges “pur apprendre larte que le dite John hennings adonc vsait . . . l’arted’une Stageplayer” (“to learn the art which the said John Heminges used . . . the artof a stageplayer”), but that the contract should be void because he was only thirteenyears old at the time, rather than the traditional minimum of fourteen.33 AfterWilliam Heminges repeatedly failed to appear, the court granted Trigge’s petitionon 21 June 1632, and three weeks later, on 11 July, Trigge claimed his freedom in theGrocers by patrimony as the son of Robert Trigge, deceased.34 He was still with theKing’s Men in 1636 and with Beeston’s Boys in 1639, though no specific post-1632roles are known for him.

William Patricke, bound on 10 December 1628 for twelve years (MS 11571/11,fol. 275v). William Patricke is first recorded as acting with the King’s Men in 1624. In1626 he played a senator in The Roman Actor, and five years later he played Demetrius,Rowland, and a Roman captain in Massinger’s Believe As You List.35 The apprenticemay have been the son of the adult actor of the same name. Quite a few apprenticeactors were sons of actors, including Robert Pallant the younger (noted above),Alexander Goughe (son of Robert Goughe of the Chamberlain’s and Queen Anne’sMen), and Robert Stratford (son of William Stratford of the Palsgrave’s Men).

As this list illustrates, the boys whom Heminges bound as Grocers wereprimarily (perhaps exclusively) trained in the theater, and several of them playedimportant roles for the Kings’ Men. Three of these apprentices—Cooke, Wilson,and Trigge—were freed as Grocers, and Cooke and Wilson went on to bindapprentices of their own. Several other members of the King’s Men were alsofreemen who bound apprentices in their livery companies, allowing us to recon-struct in large part the King’s Men’s roster of boys, especially for the second decadeof the seventeenth century.

To have this information, while useful, is hardly typical. Not only did Hemingeshave an unusually long career with one company, but the prominence of the King’s


33 Corporation of London Record Office, Mayor’s Court Original Bills, MC1–53, membrane 54.This record is cited inaccurately by Bentley, who does not mention the purpose of the petition andmistakenly says that it gives the date of Trigge’s apprenticeship as 20 December 1626 (Profession ofPlayer, 122). The date is given as “Le vnitiesm iour de december en l’an du reigne Seigneur Charles le Roy d’an-gleterre le premier” (“the twentieth day of December in the first year of the reign of Lord Charles, Kingof England” [i.e., 1625]).

34 Guildhall Library MS 11571/11, fol. 406r. There is an inconsistency here, for the Mayor’s Courtpetition describes Trigge as the son of Randall Trigge of Kent, clerk. Given the closeness of dates, Iam inclined to think that both records refer to the same William Trigge, and that Randall Trigge wasactually a legal guardian (perhaps an uncle). Such inconsistencies are not at all uncommon in recordsfrom this period.

35 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:520–21.


Men means that more documentation survives about their personnel than aboutthe personnel of other contemporary companies. For dozens of other freemen onthe lower rungs of the pre-Restoration theater, information is more scanty.Nevertheless, livery-company records can provide many details about these men,their careers, and the relationships between livery companies and playing compa-nies. William Perry is a case in point.

WILLIAM PERRY, CITIZEN AND DRAPER

William Perry, born around 1580, may be the William “Parry” (son of ThomasParry, joiner) who was christened on 22 October 1581 at St. Mary Aldermanbury,London.36 At the age of twenty-two, on 16 July 1604, Perry was freed as a Draperafter serving an apprenticeship with Henry Wollaston, and from 1605 to 1611 hepaid quarterage dues to the Drapers while living in the Whitefriars district.37

Toward the end of this period, Perry bound his first three apprentices as a Draper:Thomas Peirson, bound on 29 August 1610 for nine years; James Jones, bound on10 July 1611 for nine years; and Charles Martin, bound on 20 November 1611 foreight years.38 Two boy companies tried to gain a foothold in Whitefriars duringPerry’s residence there: the Children of the King’s Revels in 1607–8, and theChildren of the Queen’s Revels in 1610–11. Perry was probably affiliated with atleast the latter company. He was later associated with Philip Rosseter, a patentee ofthe Children of the Queen’s Revels, and on 11 November 1611 the player EdwardDutton posted bail in London Sessions Court for “William Perrie, draper, of St.Dunstan in the West.”39

In March 1613 the remnants of the second Whitefriars boy company weremerged with Lady Elizabeth’s Players. A patent for the merged company was issuedon 30 May 1613 and displayed at Coventry in March 1615.40 Perry is listed thirdon the 1613 patent after Joseph Townshend and Joseph Moore, the co-founders of


36 W. Bruce Bannerman, ed., The registers of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, London, 3 vols.(London: John Whitehead and Son, 1931–35), 1:45, 57.

37 Company of Drapers, Freedom List 1567–1656 (MS +278/F.A. 1), p. 110; Quarterage Book1605–1618 (MS +261/Q.B. 1), fol. 218v. All the Drapers’ records cited here are deposited atDrapers’ Hall in London and are quoted with the permission of the Company and its archivist,Penny Fussell.

38 Drapers’ Apprentice Bindings 1603–1658 (MS +287/F.B. 1), p. 193. Perry may well have boundmore than these three apprentices, since this index (our only source for Drapers’ apprentice bindingsbetween 1603 and 1615) is demonstrably incomplete. For example, only four of Ambrose Beeland’sseven apprentices are listed there.

39 Wickham, Berry, and Ingram, eds., 547–63 (details of the two boy companies); Mark Eccles,“Elizabethan Actors I: A–D,” Notes & Queries 236 (1991): 38–49, esp. 47 (Dutton’s bail for Perry).

40 Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearean Playing Companies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 398–99.


Lady Elizabeth’s Players, and among the “Boyes” listed are James Jones and CharlesMartin, two of Perry’s apprentices.41 Jones is an interesting case; before being boundas a Draper to Perry in 1611, he had been apprenticed as a Goldsmith to RobertArmin of the King’s Men in 1608. Jones may have been lured or stolen away fromArmin and the King’s Men by Perry, or he may have been transferred amicably.Armin’s play The Two Maids of Moreclacke was performed in 1607–8 by the childrenof the King’s Revels in Whitefriars, where Armin could have met Perry.

Perry next appears as one of several players accused in 1616 by the LordChamberlain (William Herbert) of touring with fake patents, in Perry’s case “underthe name and title of the Children of his Ma[jesty’s] Revels.”42 However, on 31October 1617 Herbert issued a warrant for Perry and his company to tour as theChildren of Queen Anne’s Revels, and Perry continued to use this warrant throughthe mid-1620s. A copy made in 1624 names seven players besides Perry, four ofwhom (including Perry’s apprentice James Jones) had also appeared in the 1613patent for Lady Elizabeth’s Players. Perry was evidently touring with essentially thesame personnel.43 On 5 September 1629 Perry was sworn a Groom of the Chamberin Ordinary, and thirteen days later he received a royal commission to form a com-pany known as the King’s-Red Bull company, nominally based in York, whichapparently toured as the King’s Players but played in the Red Bull when it was inLondon.44 It was in this context that Perry became involved in a dispute over theboy-player Stephen Hammerton, who played female roles in the early 1630s andlater became a leading man with the King’s Men.

On 12 June 1632 William Blagrave, Deputy Master of the Revels and co-financier of the new Salisbury Court playhouse, filed suit in the Court of Requestsagainst Christopher Babham, previously an investor in Salisbury Court but nowassociated with the King’s Men at the Blackfriars.45 Blagrave claimed that “one


41 Records of Early English Drama: Coventry, ed. R. W. Ingram (Toronto and Buffalo: U of TorontoP, 1981), 394. This record was printed in E. K. Chambers, “Elizabethan Stage Gleanings,” Review ofEnglish Studies 1 (1925): 182–83, with brackets (not in the original) that made it appear that Perrywas one of the “Boyes.” This error was repeated by numerous later scholars, but in context it is clearthat Perry is not listed as a boy.

42 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 1:178.43 Gurr, 363–64, provides excerpts from the various versions of this somewhat confusing patent.

The full text of a version shown in 1624 is given in N. W. Bawcutt, The Control and Censorship ofCaroline Drama (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 307–8.

44 For discussion of this rather shadowy company, which may have been more than one group, seeBentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:529–31; and Gurr, 440–45.

45 The following description of the Blagrave-Babham dispute is based on G. E. Bentley, “TheSalisbury Court Theater and Its Boy Players,” passim. The original bill and answer of the suit arenow PRO REQ–2–681.


William Perry citizen and draper of London being possessed and interested of andin one Stephen Hammerton as his apprentice” had, by a deed dated 15 October1629, turned Hammerton over to Blagrave for the remaining nine years of theboy’s apprenticeship. But Blagrave charged Babham with stealing bothHammerton and the deed in the autumn of 1631, alleging that the boy (whosecontract Blagrave valued at approximately £30) was being used for Babham’s “greatgain and advantage.”

Babham replied that he knew nothing about an apprenticeship to Perry or adeed, and asserted that Hammerton was apprenticed to William Waverley, citizenand Merchant Taylor of London, who was allowing Hammerton to remain withBabham by his own good will. G. E. Bentley assumes that Babham was lying, butthe Merchant Taylors’ records show that he was not—at least, not entirely. On 5December 1631 Stephen Hammerton, son of Richard Hammerton of Hellifield,Yorkshire, gentleman, was apprenticed to William Waverley of the Strand,Merchant Taylor, for a term of eight years.46 But the Drapers’ records contain notrace of Hammerton; in fact there is no record of Perry binding any apprenticesas Drapers after 1610–11, though he continued to act into the 1640s.

Nevertheless, Hammerton had probably been contracted to Perry at one time,as Blagrave claimed. Hammerton came from Yorkshire, the nominal base of Perry’scompany; the date of the alleged deed, 15 October 1629, is less than a month afterPerry received his royal commission; and the timing of Hammerton’s binding toWaverley agrees with Blagrave’s description of the theft. But Perry did not registerHammerton’s binding with the Drapers, whereas Babham had Hammerton for-mally bound in a livery company, “by indenture enrolled with the Chamberlain ofLondon according to the use and custom of the said city,” on the assumption thatsuch a binding would have more force than Perry’s contract. The authorities appar-ently agreed, for in November 1632 Blagrave complained to the Lord Chamberlainthat Hammerton was still with Babham and “by him employed at the Blackfriarsplayhouse.”47 Hammerton never returned to Salisbury Court but went on to a suc-cessful career with the King’s Men.

This case is interesting for a number of reasons. It shows that freemen such asPerry did not always bind apprentices in their livery companies; Perry must havebound other apprentices besides Hammerton after 1611, but, as noted above,none of them were bound as Drapers. Presumably such informal binding was ade-quate for most of Perry’s purposes, but in a case such as this one, involving a valu-


46 Merchant Taylors’ Apprentice Binding Book 1629–1635 (Guildhall Library MS 34038/10), p.180; and Ordinary Court Minutes 1629–1637 (Guildhall Library MS 34018/2), n.p.

47 Bentley,“The Salisbury Court Theater,” 143.


able boy in a tug-of-war between two London playing companies, binding in a liv-ery company seems to have been a practical necessity. The Hammerton case isalso interesting because it shows a boy-player being formally bound to someone(Waverley) who was not an actor in the company. This is consistent with EllisWorth’s report, quoted above, that the chief actors “Did vsually bynde such boyes& youthes as Apprentices to themselfes or some others that were freemen of sometrade or other” (emphasis added). Theatrical apprenticeships of the Waverleytype, in which a boy-player was formally apprenticed to a friendly third party whowas not a player, were probably common.

In some cases these friendly third parties were musicians with playhouse con-nections. Musicians had a livery company of their own, but virtually all of itsrecords from before 1700 have been lost. However, quite a few professional musi-cians were freemen of other companies whose records do survive (most notablythe Drapers and the Farriers), and those records show several musicians bindingapprentices who appeared on the professional stage. For example, AmbroseBeeland was free of the Drapers and a violinist at Blackfriars, and at least one ofhis apprentices, Nicholas Underhill, acted with the King’s Men. ThomasGoodwin was a professional musician who was free of the Farriers; though he isnot definitely known to have been a playhouse musician, one of his eight appren-tices, Samuel Mannery, played a bawd for Prince Charles’s Men at SalisburyCourt in 1631, suggesting that Goodwin may have been a performer there.

Other evidence indicates that third-party freemen may have been paid for theuse of their apprentices. Consider Philip Henslowe, who was free of the Dyersand called himself “cittizen and Dyer of London” in the deed of partnership forthe Rose playhouse in 1587 and in various other legal documents.48 On 18December 1597 Henslowe “bowght my boye Jeames brystow of william agustenplayer” for £8, and in 1600–1601 the Admiral’s Men owed Henslowe money forBristow’s wages.49 A boy named James, presumably Bristow, played minor rolesfor the Admiral’s Men in 1597–1602. The early apprenticeship records of theDyers are lost, but it appears that Bristow was apprenticed to Henslowe, whorented him out to the Admiral’s as a boy-player. It is not difficult to imagine a sim-ilar arrangement between William Waverley and the King’s Men with respect toHammerton.


48 Carol Chillington Rutter, ed., Documents of the Rose Playhouse, rev. ed. (Manchester and NewYork: Manchester UP, 1999), 37; see also Henslowe’s Diary, ed. R. A. Foakes and R. T. Rickert, 2ded. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002), 29.

49 Foakes and Rickert, eds., 241, 118, 164, 167.


A SURVEY OF THEATRICAL FREEMEN, 1520–1642

The descriptions in this survey of forty-four freemen focus primarily on activi-ties related to livery companies, but they also include enough other information toprovide necessary context. (Fuller biographies and information about freemenexcluded from this list will appear in my projected Biographical Dictionary of EnglishDrama Before 1660.) This list is not exhaustive; a systematic search of all the compa-nies’ records would certainly uncover more theatrical freemen and more apprenticesbound to such freemen. For practical reasons I have restricted my list to five over-lapping categories:

1) Players in the major London companies. Virtually every pre-Restoration playingcompany in London had at least one freeman in its ranks at any given time, and theleading companies generally had more; most were sharers. I have also included somemen who did not gain their freedom until after retiring from the stage.

2) Playhouse musicians. As noted above, many musicians employed in the play-houses were freemen, and their apprentices sometimes appeared onstage. See theentries for John Adson (Musician), Ambrose Beeland and Nicholas Underhill(Drapers), and Jeffrey Collins and Thomas Goodwin (Farriers).

3) Leaders of touring companies. Unlike the players in London companies, thesemen did not always bind apprentices in their livery companies, as we saw in the caseof William Perry; even so, that so many of them were freemen is significant.

4) Leaders of boy companies. Here, too, boys were not formally bound in livery com-panies, because the standard length of an apprenticeship contract in the boy com-panies was three years, below the seven-year minimum required by the 1562 statute.Nevertheless, these leaders’ status as freemen was seen as important. The contractsof Thomas Kendall and Martin Slater make a point of calling them citizens.

5) Playwrights. Professional playwrights came from a variety of backgrounds, butquite a few of them were freemen, including Lording Barry, Thomas Drew, JohnHeywood, Ben Jonson, Anthony Munday, and John Webster. Of these, at leastDrew, Heywood, and Jonson bound apprentices in their livery companies, and it istempting to wonder whether those apprentices were used for theatrical purposes.

John Adson, Musician (1587–1640). Playhouse musician and actor. Adson wasbaptized on 24 January 1587 in Watford, Northamptonshire.50 By 1614 he hadbecome free of the Company of Musicians, for he was described as “citizen andmusician” when he was appointed a city wait of London on 23 May. The early


50 Except where otherwise noted, this account of Adson’s life is based on Ashbee and Lasocki,8–10; and Eccles,“Actors I,” 38–39.


records of the Musicians do not survive, but Adson appears to have been a memberin good standing for the rest of his life. He described himself as “citizen and musi-cian” in a Chancery deposition of 1623, and when his son Roger was apprenticed asa Draper in 1631 to Ambrose Beeland, the elder Adson was described as “Civis etMusitian London” (“citizen and musician of London”).51 By the 1630s, and proba-bly earlier, Adson was a musician and sometime actor for the King’s Men; in 1634he appeared as an invisible spirit in Heywood and Brome’s The Late LancashireWitches, and the same year he was one of the Blackfriars musicians who performedin Shirley’s masque The Triumph of Peace.52

John Alleyn, Innholder (c. 1555–96). Actor, investor. John Alleyn was the elderbrother of the famous actor Edward Alleyn. Their father Edward, a porter toQueen Elizabeth and a freeman of the Company of Innholders, died in 1570, whenJohn was about fifteen and Edward four.53 The following year the lord mayor andaldermen of London, sitting as the Court of Orphans (charged with providing forthe underage children of deceased freemen), took recognizances from four citizensfor the portions and legacies left by Edward Alleyn, citizen and innholder, for hissons John and Edward. John received his portion in 1576, and Edward received hisin 1587, soon after he turned twenty-one.54 At some point in the late 1570s JohnAlleyn became a freeman of the Innholders, most likely by patrimony; he wasdescribed as an “inholder” in 1580 and 1593, and as “ffree of the company ofInholders of london” in 1592.55 He may have been an actor, since he was describedas a servant of the Lord Admiral in 1589, and he was certainly involved in thefinancial affairs of the Admiral’s Men along with Edward.56


51 Drapers’ Apprentice Bindings 1615–1634 (MS +288/F.B. 2).52 Several other playhouse musicians were also freemen of the Musicians, though the loss of the

company’s records makes identification difficult. Rowland Rubbidge, who played the violin in PrinceHenry’s masque Oberon in 1611, was one of fourteen assistants named when the Musicians receivedtheir royal charter in 1604; see Ashbee and Lasocki, 976–77. (Honigmann and Brock print a tran-scription of Rubbidge’s will [20].)William Saunders, who was with the King’s Men in 1624, wascalled “Citizen and Musician” when he was appointed a London wait in 1634; see Ashbee andLasocki, 985–87. E. K. Chambers suggested that Augustine Phillips of the Chamberlain’s-King’sMen may have been free of the Musicians, since in his will Phillips bequeathed musical instrumentsto his “late Aprentice” Samuel Gilbourne and his “Aprentice” James Sands, both known to have per-formed with the King’s Men (Chambers, William Shakespeare, 85; and Honigmann and Brock,72–75). This is an intriguing hypothesis that will probably never be proved unless new evidencecomes to light.

53 An excellent account of the elder Edward Alleyn and the early life of his sons appears in S. P.Cerasano,“Edward Alleyn’s Early Years: His Life and Family,” Notes & Queries 232 (1987): 237–43.

54 Mark Eccles,“Edward Alleyn in London Records,” Notes & Queries 235 (1990): 166–68.55 Eccles,“Elizabethan Actors II,” 455.56 See Nungezer, 12.


Edward Alleyn would also have been entitled to claim his freedom in theInnholders by patrimony, but there is no record of whether he did so, as the com-pany’s early records do not survive. That he is never referred to as an innholder inany extant document proves nothing, since Englishmen of high social standingrarely identified themselves as freemen. (Alleyn’s step-father-in-law, PhilipHenslowe, was free of the Dyers but is routinely called “gentleman” in documents ofthe period and even in his will.) We know that Alleyn took apprentices, since theboy-player John Pig named Alleyn as his “mayster,” and “mr allens boy” played aMoorish page in The Battle of Alcazar for the Admiral’s Men.57

Robert Armin, Goldsmith (c. 1568–1615). Actor. On 13 October 1581, Arminwas apprenticed for a term of eleven years to John Lonyson, a London Goldsmithwho was a native of Armin’s birthplace of Lynn, Norfolk.58 But Lonyson died thefollowing year, and Armin was re-apprenticed to John Kettlewood for nine yearsbeginning at Michaelmas 1582. He was not freed before becoming a professionalplayer, but on 27 January 1604, after he had been a member of the King’s Men fornearly five years, Armin appeared before the Goldsmiths’ Court and was sworn afreeman of the company. On 15 July 1608 Armin bound James Jones, son ofThomas Jones of Kreinton, Huntingdonshire, for an apprenticeship of ten years.59

A player of that name later appears with Lady Elizabeth’s Players in 1613 and withthe Children of the Queen’s Revels in 1624—but, as noted above, that James Joneswas the apprentice of William Perry, either lured away from Armin or transferredamicably. Armin called himself “Cittizen and Goldsmithe of London” in his will,and is called “ffree of the Gouldsmithes and a Player” in the record of his burial atSt. Botolph Aldgate on 30 November 1615.60

Lording Barry, Fishmonger (1580–1629). Playwright, leader of boy company.Barry was the son of Nicholas Barry, a freeman of the Fishmongers. In 1607–8, hewas one of several partners who borrowed money to invest in the Children of theKing’s Revels at the new Whitefriars playhouse, a venture in which Martin Slater,Thomas Woodford, and numerous other freemen were involved. Barry also wroteplays for the company, including Ram Alley and (probably) The Family of Love.


57 W. W. Greg, Dramatic Documents from the Elizabethan Playhouses (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1931), 51, 61. S. P. Cerasano, the leading authority on Edward Alleyn’s life, doubts that he was a free-man like his brother.

58 Goldsmiths’ Apprentice Book 1, p. 32 (29), first noted by Emma Denkinger,“Actors’ Names inthe Registers of St. Botolph Aldgate,” Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 41 (1926):91–109, esp. 96. An imposing portrait of Lonyson, dated 1565, now hangs at Goldsmiths’ Hall.

59 See Jane Belfield, “Robert Armin, Citizen and Goldsmith of London,” Notes & Queries 225(1980): 158–59; and Goldsmiths’ Apprentice Book 1, fol. 180v.

60 Belfield, 159; see also the transcription of Armin’s will (Guildhall Library MS 9052/4) inHonigmann and Brock, 96–98.


When the venture failed and creditors came calling in mid-1608, Barry fledLondon and joined a gang of pirates based in southwest Ireland, and while most ofhis compatriots were caught and executed in December 1609, Barry escaped pun-ishment.61 At some point before 1610, Barry claimed his freedom in theFishmongers by patrimony, for he is listed among the yeomanry in the earliest sur-viving Fishmongers’ quarterage book, from 1610–11. He continued to pay dues tothe Fishmongers through 1620–22, sometimes being specified as “fils N Barry.”62

Barry stopped paying quarterage dues in 1622–24, but he apparently lived until1629, when his will was proved.

Ambrose Beeland, Draper (c. 1597–c. 1677). Playhouse musician. Beeland wasapprenticed around 1610 to Thomas Stephenson, a Draper who was a musician byprofession, and was made free of the Drapers on 3 September 1619, one day beforehe married Frances Bailey.63 For at least the next fifteen years he was employed bythe King’s Men as a violinist: he was listed among the employees of the King’s Menin 1624, and ten years later he was one of the Blackfriars musicians who were to playin James Shirley’s masque The Triumph of Peace (1634). He became a city wait ofLondon in 1631 and a royal musician from 1640 to 1674. Although Beeland workedas a professional musician for fifty-five years, he continued to pay quarterly dues asa member of the Drapers during that entire time. Among his nine apprentices,Nicholas Underhill was a musician and minor actor at the Blackfriars and later atthe Cockpit, and Roger Adson (bound 4 May 1631 for fifteen years) was the son offellow Blackfriars musician John Adson, who was free of the Company ofMusicians.64

At least two of Beeland’s fellow apprentices under Stephenson also became freeof the Drapers and worked as playhouse musicians. Thomas Hunter, the son ofMatthew Hunter, musician, of Lewes, Sussex, was apprenticed to Stephenson forten years from 16 October 1616; he was freed on 26 March 1628. Hunter boundtwo apprentices as Drapers: Richard Worthington on 9 September 1629 and John


61 The most complete account of Barry’s life is C. L’Estrange Ewen, Lording Barry, Poet and Pirate(Printed for the Author, 1938), which was abstracted in C. L’Estrange Ewen, “Lording Barry,Dramatist,” Notes & Queries 174 (1938): 111–12. The details of the Whitefriars theatrical ventures,and the ensuing lawsuits, are described by William Ingram, “The Playhouse as an Investment,1607–1614: Thomas Woodford and Whitefriars,” Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 2(1985): 209–30.

62 Fishmongers’ Quarterage Book 1610–1642 (Guildhall Library MS 5578A/1), fols. 12r, 28v, 43v,61r, 75v, and 94r.

63 Drapers’ Freedom List 1567–1656 (MS +278/F.B. 1), p. 168. For Beeland’s marriage to Bailey,and the other facts in this paragraph not cited directly from the Drapers’ records, see the very com-plete account in Ashbee and Lasocki, 138–41.

64 Drapers’ Apprentice Bindings 1615–1634 (MS +288/F.B. 2), n.p.


Norvaile on 11 April 1632, neither of whom was freed. John Levasher, the son ofThomas Levasher, instrument-maker, of Bristol, was apprenticed to Stephenson forseven years from 19 February 1623 and was freed on 10 March 1630. His onlyapprentice was his own brother Thomas, bound for seven years on 25 January 1632but never freed. Both Hunter and Levasher were listed among the Cockpit musi-cians scheduled to appear in The Triumph of Peace in 1634. Hunter paid quarteragedues to the Drapers in 1629–31; Levasher paid dues in 1634–36, after which he waslisted as “gone beyond sea.”65

John Bugge, Apothecary (c. 1596–1640). Actor. On 14 December 1620 “JohnBuggs” was sworn a freeman of the Society of Apothecaries, which had been char-tered three years earlier.66 On 10 January 1629 he was sworn a Groom of theChamber in Ordinary as one of the Queen of Bohemia’s Players, and on 4 Marchof the same year “Andrew son of reputed wife of Andrew Bugge Chirurgeon” waschristened at St. Giles Cripplegate.67 On 7 February 1631 the College of Physiciansaccused various people of “pratising Physique ag[ainst] ye Charter of the Colledge,”including “Bugges one of the Queen of Bohemias Players sometimes anApothecare.”68 Bugge bound six apprentices in the Apothecaries, and the last threeof these were bound during the period when he was active in the Queen ofBohemia’s Players: William Walley, son of William of Middlewich, Cheshire(bound on 11 May 1629); George Browne, son of George, parish clerk, of London(bound on 25 March 1630); and William Bartlett, son of Robert, gentleman, ofCherington, Wiltshire (turned over by Bugge to Mathias Bowche on 8 June 1630).69

Bugge is mentioned in several other records from the 1630s, including a bequest byRichard Benfield of Gray’s Inn (a friend of numerous players) to “my lovinge freindJohn Bugges Doctor in Phisicke.”70 Bugge made his own will on 23 May 1640 as“Johannis Buggs in medicinis Drs,” leaving all his goods to his (unnamed) wife andchildren, and the will was proved on 7 July of that year.71

James Burbage, Joiner (c. 1530–1597). Actor, playhouse-builder. Burbage was orig-inally a joiner by profession, and thus must have been a freeman of the Joiners,


65 Drapers’ Apprentice Bindings 1615–1634 (MS +288/F.B. 2) (all five bindings); Drapers’Freedom List 1567–1656 (MS +278/F.B. 1), pp. 194 (Hunter’s freedom), 198 (Levasher’s freedom);Drapers’ Quarterage Book 1628–42 (MS +260/Q.B. 3), p. 149.

66 Society of Apothecaries, Court Minutes 1617–1651 (Guildhall Library MS 8200/1, onmicrofilm), p. 48

67 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:393.68 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:393.69 Guildhall Library MS 8200/1, pp. 204, 226, 233; indexed in Patrick Wallis, London Apprentices,

Volume 32: Apothecaries’ Company, 1617–1669 (London: Society of Genealogists, 2000), 3, 7, 43.70 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:394.71 PRO B11/183.


though the early records of the company are lost. By 1572 he was acting withLeicester’s Men, but the description of him as a “joyner” in the Theatre’s 1576 leasesuggests that he maintained his membership in the company even after becoming afull-time player and theatrical entrepreneur.72

As with Edward Alleyn, it is at least possible that James’s son Richard claimedhis freedom in the Joiners by patrimony, as he was entitled to do at any time after1589. The two King’s Men who witnessed Richard Burbage’s 1619 will, NicholasTooley and Richard Robinson, had probably also been his apprentices: Tooleyreferred to “my late M[aste]r Richard Burbage” in his own will of 1623; andRobinson, who as a boy had played female roles for the King’s Men, later marriedBurbage’s widow, Winifred, on 31 October 1622.73 Richard Burbage is generallyreferred to as “gentleman” in contemporary documents, but the same is true of manyfreemen who achieved high social standing. In any case, it is an interesting fact thatthe era’s two most famous players, Alleyn and Richard Burbage, were the sons offreemen, whether or not they were freemen themselves.74

Andrew Cane, Goldsmith (1589?–c. 1658). Actor. Theater historians have knownfor many years that Cane was a goldsmith, but the records of the Goldsmiths’Company provide much valuable new information.75 Cane was the son of RobertCane, butcher, of Windsor, and in 1602 he was apprenticed for ten years to his ownbrother Richard, who had become free of the Goldsmiths two years earlier.76


72 Ingram gives a thorough summary of Burbage’s early career and his connection to the Joiners;see The Business of Playing, 95–100.

73 For Tooley’s will, see Honigmann and Brock, 124–28; and for Robinson’s marriage to WinifredBurbage, see Mary Edmond, “Yeomen, Citizens, Gentlemen, and Players: The Burbages and TheirConnections” in Elizabethan Theater: Essays in Honor of S. Schoenbaum, R. B. Parker and S. P. Zitner,eds. (Newark: U of Delaware P, 1996), 42. It was not uncommon for apprentices to marry their mas-ters’ widows; Philip Henslowe did so, as did Richard Field, the printer of Shakespeare’s Venus andAdonis and Rape of Lucrece.

74 Playwrights and players who were sons of freemen but not definitely known to have beenfreemen themselves include Thomas Kyd (son of a Scrivener), Thomas Middleton (son of aBricklayer), Thomas Lodge (son of a Grocer), George Peele (son of a Salter), Gabriel Spencer (sonof a Pewterer), Nicholas Tooley (son of a Leatherseller), and William Ecclestone (son of a MerchantTaylor).

75 Most of this new information was first brought to my attention by John Astington in his paperfor the 2002 Shakespeare Association of America meeting,“A Man to Double Business Bound: TheCareer of Andrew Cane,” forthcoming in Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England. I subsequentlyconfirmed this information and noted some further details at Goldsmiths’ Hall with the help of thelibrarian there, Mr. David Beasley. The best previous account of Cane’s career is found in Bentley,Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:398–401. See also Bentley,“The Troubles of a Caroline Acting Troupe:Prince Charles’s Company,” HLQ 41 (1978): 217–49; and William Ingram, “Arthur Savill, StagePlayer,” Theatre Notebook 37 (1983): 21–22.

76 Goldsmiths’ Apprentice Book 1, fol. 142r.


Andrew Cane became free of the Goldsmiths on 25 January 1611, and on 7 January1612 he bound his first apprentice, John Hilton, son of Henry Hilton of Fulham,Middlesex.77 Unlike many of the freemen listed here, there is considerable evidencethat Cane practiced the craft of his company for more than forty years, keeping ashop and making silverware.

By 1622 Cane was also among the “chief ” players at the Phoenix (a venue asso-ciated with Lady Elizabeth’s Players), and soon afterwards he was acting with thePalsgrave’s Men at the Fortune. Between 1621 and 1633, as his playing careerflourished, Cane bound five apprentices. Three of these are unknown to stage his-torians: Thomas Stayne, son of Rowland Stayne, armorer, of London (bound on 20July 1621 for eight years); Hugh Pusey, son of Hugh Pusey, gentleman, of Pusey,Berkshire (bound on 22 June 1627, retroactively from Christmas 1626, for eightyears); and Thomas Gibbins, son of Christopher Gibbins, shoemaker, of Hurly,Berkshire (bound on 22 November 1633 for nine years).78 This gap in scholarlyknowledge is hardly surprising, given that only one cast list from Cane’s companieshas survived. The list is for Shakerley Marmion’s Holland’s Leaguer (performed 1631,printed 1632), and it shows Cane’s two other apprentices, John Wright and ArthurSavill, playing female roles. Wright, son of John Wright, baker, of St. GilesCripplegate (bound on 27 November 1629 for eight years), played “Milliscent”; andSavill, son of Cordaile Savill, gentleman, of Clerkenwell (bound on 5 August 1631for eight years), played the gentlewoman “Quartilla.”79 As Wright testified in 1655,he had acted throughout his apprenticeship, raising the possibility—I would say theprobability—that Cane’s three other apprentices—Stayne, Pusey, and Gibbins—were also boy-players. During the Interregnum, Cane bound three more appren-tices: Nathaniel Cooper (on 26 October 1649 for seven years), George Barrett (on1 July 1653 for eight years), and John Winnall (on 17 March 1654 for eight years).80

Because the playhouses were officially closed, these apprentices were probablytrained as goldsmiths; but Cane continued to perform surreptitiously, so at leastsome of these boys might have appeared onstage.81

Jeffrey Collins, Farrier (fl. 1624–40). Playhouse musician. Collins was listed in 1624as one of the King’s Men at the Blackfriars, and in 1634 he was among the Cockpit


77 Goldsmiths’ Court Book, fol. 702r; Apprentice Book 1, fol. 201r.78 Goldsmiths’ Apprentice Book 1, fols. 249v, 279v, and 321r. Pusey was eventually freed in

1635.79 Goldsmiths’ Apprentice Book 1, fols. 294v and 305r. Both apprentices were eventually freed

(Savill in 1639, Wright in 1646), and their careers are described more fully below.80 Goldsmiths’ Apprentice Book 2, fols. 33r, 55r, and 60r. Cooper was freed by Cane in 1656, but

the other two appear not to have been freed.81 See Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:401.


musicians scheduled to appear in The Triumph of Peace.82 A freeman of the Farriers,Collins bound five apprentices in that company: Henry Bland, son of Henry, yeoman,of Ely, Cambridgeshire (on 19 December 1626 for eight years); Roger Thomson, sonof Henry, barber, of Ely, Cambridgeshire (on 1 May 1630 for nine years); DavidBrowne, son of Thomas, deceased yeoman, of St. Dacre, Derbyshire (on 6 June 1634for eleven years); Francis Ingram, son of Simon, gardener, of Chichester, Sussex (on25 June 1640 for eight years); and John Zealand, son of Lawrence, deceased musician,of Haverhill, Suffolk (on 24 November 1640 for seven years).83

WWiilllliiaamm CCrraannee, Mercer (d. 1545). Leader of boy company. Crane became aGentleman of the Chapel Royal from 1506 and performed in numerous pageants inthe early years of Henry VIII’s reign. Following the death of William Cornish in1523, Crane became acting master of the Children of the Chapel Royal, and he wasofficially appointed as Cornish’s successor on 12 May 1526. Two months earlier, on21 March, Crane had also been made a freeman of the Company of Mercers at therequest of Henry VIII. Their proximity implies that there may have been a con-nection between the two appointments. Crane was reimbursed £3 6s 8d on 15 June1531 for his expenses while traveling to recruit choirboys for the Chapel, andbetween 1528 and 1541 he was regularly paid for performing plays at court with theChildren of the Chapel.84

TThhoommaass DDoowwnnttoonn, Vintner (d. 1625). Actor. Downton appears often inHenslowe’s diary and the Henslowe papers, which also contain numerous mentionsof his “boys.” One of these boys, Thomas Parsons, played a Fury in The Battle ofAlcazar and several female parts in 1 Tamar Cam (acted 1602).85 Downton contin-ued as a sharer in the Admiral’s-Prince’s-Palsgrave’s Men for more than two decadesand was still a leader of the company in 1617. On 13 February 1618 Downton paidthe considerable sum of £11 13s 4d to become free of the Vintners by redemption,and two days later he married his third wife, Jane Easton, widow of Oliver Easton,Vintner, and owner of the Red Cross tavern.86 Over the next seven years Downtonbound three apprentices as Vintners: Jeffrey Langworth on 7 May 1618, CharlesGrafton on 5 June 1622, and Joseph Beverton on 6 October 1624.87 There are indi-


82 See Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:409; Andrew J. Sabol, “New Documents on Shirley’sMasque ‘The Triumph of Peace’,” Music and Letters 47 (1966): 10–26, esp. 25.

83 Farriers’Apprentice Bindings (Guildhall Library MS 5526/1), pp. 58, 76 (no numbering after p. 79).84 For a very thorough account of Crane’s life, see Ashbee and Lasocki, 312–14.85 See Greg, 50.86 Vintners’ Freemen’s Book 2 (Guildhall Library MS 15211/2), p. 146; Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline

Stage, 2:426.87 Vintners’ Freemen’s Book 2 (Guildhall Library MS 15211/2), pp. 147, 168, and 186. For more

information about Easton and Downton, see Eccles, “Actors I,” 46; and Guildhall Library MS15219/2, fol. 188r, which contains all three apprentices’ autographs.


cations that Downton gave up playing at the time of his marriage to Easton andbecame a practicing vintner, so these boys were probably not apprenticed to act.That Downton gained his freedom by redemption (rather than translation) meansthat he was presumably not a freeman during his playing days and thus that his“boys” mentioned in Henslowe’s diary were probably not bound in a livery compa-ny. However, it is possible that they were formally bound to some third party (asStephen Hammerton was) and that Downton was their master within theAdmiral’s Men. Downton’s career as a vintner was cut short by the plague of 1625:on 28 July his apprentice Jeffrey Langworth was buried at St. Giles Cripplegate, andon 5 August Downton made his will, describing himself as “Vintner” and making nomention of theatrical affairs.88 The will was proved two weeks later on 19 August.

Thomas Drew, Fishmonger (c. 1586–c. 1627). Actor and playwright. Drew actedwith Queen Anne’s Men starting in 1612, but by his own account he left the com-pany at Christmas 1618, as it was rapidly disintegrating due to financial pressureand internal dissension. Ten months later, on 11 October 1619, Drew claimed hisfreedom in the Fishmongers by patrimony, being described as the son of “GeorgDrewe deceased.”89 When he testified about Queen Anne’s Men in the Chancerysuit of Worth v. Baskerville on 18 November 1623, he described himself as 37 yearsold and free of the Fishmongers. Three weeks after his testimony, on 8 December,Drew bound his only apprentice: Richard King, son of William King, haberdasher,deceased, of London.90 It is not clear whether Drew continued to act after leavingQueen Anne’s Men, but he did apparently write plays for the Palsgrave’s Men at theFortune; so King may have been apprenticed for theatrical purposes. Drew appearsin the Fishmongers’ quarterage book for 1622–24, but in the list for 1626–28 he ismarked “mort” (dead) after having paid 2s, indicating that he probably died late in1626 or early in 1627.91

James Dunstone. See James Tunstall.John Dutton, Weaver (c. 1548–1614). Actor.Lawrence Dutton, Weaver (fl. 1571–98). Actor.On 26 January 1573, John and Lawrence Dutton, Weavers, and Thomas Goffe

(or Goughe), citizen and Barber-Surgeon, of London (all three actually players byprofession) sued Rowland Broughton in Chancery for failing to provide plays for


88 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:426; and Honigmann and Brock, 146–47. Downton’s willis PRO B10/425.

89 Fishmongers’ Presentment Book 1 (Guildhall Library MS 5576/1), fol. 34v.90 Sisson,“Notes,” 27; Fishmongers’ Presentment Book 1 (Guildhall Library MS 5576/1), fol. 52v.

For a summary of Drew’s career as a playwright, see Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 3:280–86.91 Fishmongers’ Quarterage Book 1610–42 (Guildhall Library MS 5578A/1), fol. 140r. The list

covers the period from Midsummer 1626 (24 June) to Annunciation Day 1628 (25 March).


their company as he had contracted to do the previous June.92 Lawrence Duttonand Thomas Goffe had been paid for court performances by Sir Robert Lane’s Menduring the 1571–72 Christmas season, but by the next Christmas season they wereunder the patronage of the earl of Lincoln; on 10 February 1573, two weeks aftertheir lawsuit against Broughton was filed, a payment for court performances wasmade to “Laurence Dutton srunte to therle of Lincoln.”93 Andrew Gurr has reason-ably suggested that the company transferred from Lane’s to Lincoln’s patronagewhen the Act of Vagabonds, published 29 June 1572, required players to have apatron with at least the rank of baron.94 The contract with Broughton, dated 2 June,may have been connected with this reorganization. It specifically mentions “part ofthe wages or stipend of all such boys as shall be needful for players in and aboutsthe same play and plays.”95 That it makes a point of mentioning the three plaintiffs’freedom is also suggestive.

Sixteenth-century freedom and apprenticeship records for the Weavers havenot survived, but it appears that both Duttons were freemen of the companythroughout their playing careers.96 They led various playing companies in the1570s, and belonged to the Queen’s Men in the 1580s. In the 1590s, a few yearsbefore he apparently quit the stage, John Dutton was active in the Company ofWeavers, being elected warden (1591–92), assistant to the liveries (1594), secondbailiff (1594), first bailiff (1595), and auditor of the accounts (1596–1600,1603–1608). He is called John Dutton, citizen and Weaver, in legal documents of1602, 1606, and 1608; he died in 1614.97 Lawrence Dutton also apparently retiredfrom acting in the 1590s, but he did not become active in company business,instead encountering financial difficulties and trying his hand at various shady pur-suits. In 1596 he was imprisoned as a result of a long-defaulted loan, but hejumped bail and left several sureties, including his brother John, to pay his debts.He is not traceable after 1598.98


92 See R. Mark Benbow,“Dutton and Goffe versus Broughton: A Disputed Contract for Plays inthe 1570s,” REED Newsletter 2 (1981): 3–9.

93 Chambers, Elizabethan Stage, 4:147.94 See Gurr, 170.95 Benbow, 5.96 See Eccles,“Actors I,” 47–49; and William Ingram,“Laurence Dutton, Stage Player: Missing and

Presumed Lost,” Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 14 (2001): 122–43. As Ingram notes, theevidence identifying the Weaver Lawrence Dutton with the actor of the same name is fairly clear,whereas the comparable evidence for John Dutton is strongly suggestive but has some inconsisten-cies, as such evidence from this period often does.

97 Ingram,“Laurence Dutton,” 125; Eccles,“Actors I,” 47–48.98 The basics of Lawrence Dutton’s activities were first reported by Eccles (“Actors I,” 48–49), but

Ingram provides much more detail and context in his 2001 essay on Dutton.


RRiicchhaarrdd EErrrriinnggttoonn, Pewterer (c. 1577–c. 1638). Actor. Errington first appearsamong the membership lists of the Pewterers in 1609, and his position at the endof the list suggests that he had only recently become free.99 He probably claimed hisfreedom by patrimony, since he does not appear to have been apprenticed as aPewterer. In 1622 Errington shows up in Norwich as the leader of “his Ma[jesty’s]Company of Players.”100 In a 1627 deposition following a drunken riot outside aplayhouse in Ludlow, Shropshire, Errington described himself as “RichardErrington, of the Citty of London, pewterer, aged l(tie) [50] yeares or thereabout”and “one of the Company of his Ma[jesty’s] . . . players.”101 In 1631, he was atReading leading a company with fellow Pewterer Ellis Guest, but in 1636 he waswith William Daniels and the traveling Players of the Revels. He continued toappear in the Pewterers’ membership lists through 1637.

Henry Evans, Scrivener (c. 1543–1608). Leader of boy companies. Evans wasapprenticed as a Scrivener to Wilfred Lutye in 1561, and on 26 August 1567 he wasmade free of the Scriveners, or Writers of the Court Letter.102 In the 1580s Evanswas a key figure in the theatrical activities of both Paul’s Boys and the Children ofthe Chapel, where he was a lessee of the first Blackfriars playhouse.103 In 1600 hewas one of the prime movers in the revived Children of the Chapel at the secondBlackfriars playhouse, leasing the property from Richard Burbage. He was forcedout of the company’s day-to-day operations in 1602 but continued to exert hisinfluence behind the scenes, possibly until his death in 1608.104

Thomas Goodale, Mercer (c. 1557–after 1610). Actor. Goodale was born some-time around 1557, was married in 1578–79, and was with Berkeley’s Men in 1581.105


99 Pewterers’ Register of the Livery and Yeomanry 1570–1677 (Guildhall Library MS 7095/1,unpaginated and unfoliated). An Andrew Errington, possibly a brother, appears in 1615 but ismarked “mort” (dead) in 1623.

100 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:431–32. Except where otherwise noted, this is the sourceof my information about Errington’s playing career.

101 Records of Early English Drama: Shropshire, ed. J. Alan B. Somerset, 2 vols. (Toronto, Buffalo,London: U of Toronto P, 1994), 2:110.

102 See M. E. Smith, “Personnel at the Second Blackfriars: Some Biographical Notes,” Notes &Queries 223 (1978): 441–45, esp. 444. Evans’s autograph subscription to the oath, dated 26 August1567, is in Guildhall Library MS 5370, fol. 36v.

103 Roma Ball, in “The Choir-Boy Actors of St. Paul’s Cathedral” (Emporia State Research Studies[1962]: 5–16, esp. 11), summarizes the activities of the children’s companies in the 1580s. A concisesummary of the early boy companies is given by Gurr, 218–29.

104 James Forse, “Extortion in the Name of Art in Elizabethan England: The Impressment ofThomas Clifton for the Queen’s Chapel Boys,” Theatre Survey 31 (1990): 165–76; and Smith,“Personnel,” give details of Evans’s career with the second Blackfriars Boys.

105 He gave his age as forty-two in 1598, implying a birthdate of 1556, but as forty-five in 1604,implying a birthdate of 1559; see Eccles,“Actors II,” 456. Such discrepancies are actually quite com-mon in depositions of the time, since many people were not sure exactly how old they were.


His stage career after that is known only from his being designated a “player” inparish registers of 1593 and 1594, and from the presence of his name in two famoustheatrical manuscripts: Sir Thomas More, in which he played a messenger; and TheSeven Deadly Sins, in which he played four minor roles. He was identified as a “mer-cer” in a 1593 bond, along with the players John Alleyn and Robert Lee, anddescribed himself as “free of the company of mercers” in lawsuits of 1598 and1604.106 The player was presumably the son of the Thomas Goodale who was freedas a Mercer in 1555 after being apprenticed to John Ellyote and who was buried atSt. Giles Cripplegate in 1588. The only other man of this name in the Mercers’records was freed in 1611/12 by patrimony as the son of Thomas Goodale, but thelate date makes it more likely that this second Thomas Goodale was the son of theplayer, whose own freedom somehow went unrecorded.107

Thomas Goodwin, Farrier (fl. 1619–34). Musician. Like Jeffrey Collins,Goodwin was a professional musician who was free of the Farriers, and he boundeight apprentices in that company between 1619 and 1632. One of these wasSamuel Mannery, bound on 1 August 1629 for nine years, the son of NicholasMannery, deceased gentleman of London. In 1631 Samuel Mannery played a bawdin a production of Shakerley Marmion’s Holland’s Leaguer given by Prince Charles’sMen at Salisbury Court. He was married in 1638, the year his apprenticeshipended, and was still acting the following year.108 We have no record of the musi-cians employed in the Salisbury Court playhouse, but Goodwin’s binding ofMannery suggests that he was one of them. Three of Goodwin’s other apprenticeswere eventually freed as Farriers and also became prominent musicians. JohnYockney, son of Thomas Yockney, shoemaker, of Longbridge Deverill, Wiltshire(bound on 24 May 1624 for nine years), became a royal musician and bound atleast eight apprentices of his own between 1635 and his death in 1662;Marmaduke Wright, son of William Wright, musician, of Old Street, Middlesex(bound on 13 February 1626 for seven years), became a London wait who boundseven apprentices between 1632 and 1664; and William Young, son of Thomas


106 Greg, 45–46; Eccles, “Actors II,” 455–56. The Seven Deadly Sins is usually taken to be a play ofStrange’s Men around 1590, but, as noted above under Thomas Belte and Alexander Cooke, a vari-ety of evidence indicates that it is a Chamberlain’s Men play from 1597–98.

107 List of the Members of the Mercers’ Company from 1343, pp. 198 and 202; and GuildhallLibrary MS 6419/1. The player did have a son named Thomas baptized in 1591 at St. LeonardShoreditch, but this child was buried in 1593 at St. Botolph Aldgate as “Thomas goodaul sonne toThomas goodaul a player” (Eccles,“Actors II,” 455). All Mercers’ records cited here are deposited atMercers’ Hall in London, and are quoted with the permission of the Company and its archivist,Ursula Carlyle.

108 Farriers’ Apprentice Bindings (Guildhall Library MS 5526/1), p. 74; Bentley, Jacobean andCaroline Stage, 2:506.


Young, musician, of Ripon, Yorkshire (bound on 9 February 1632 for eight years),also became a royal musician and bound at least two apprentices between 1660 and1663.109

Thomas Goughe, Barber-Surgeon (fl. 1572–88). Actor. As noted above, Goughe(or Goffe) was a payee for a court performance by Sir Robert Lane’s Men in the1571–72 Christmas season, and he was the third plaintiff (alongside the Duttons)in the 1573 Chancery suit against Broughton.110 He was called “citizen and barber-surgeon of London” in the suit, but it turns out that he had only recently gained theright to so describe himself. The contract with Broughton was dated 2 June 1572;“Thomas Gowge app[re]nt[ice] of Edward Bulman” was made free of the Companyof Barber-Surgeons on 7 October 1572; the lawsuit against Broughton was filed on26 January 1573.111 The timing is certainly curious. Given his leadership positionwith Lane’s Men, Goughe had probably served his apprenticeship well before 1572;so his claiming of his freedom at that time appears to be related to his playing careerand/or the lawsuit. There is no definite theatrical record of Goughe after 1573, buton 27 April 1588, as “Thomas Goofe,” he freed an apprentice named RichardAlderson in the Barber-Surgeons.112

Ellis Guest, Pewterer (1589–c. 1638). Actor. Guest was probably the “ElliceGheast,” son of Rafe, who was baptized on 6 March 1589 at St. Augustine WatlingStreet in London.113 In 1605–6 Guest was apprenticed as a Pewterer to JohnCatryngham, and he was freed in 1612–13.114 He had already begun to appear inthe Pewterers’ membership lists in 1611, before he was actually free, and he contin-ued to be named there for the next twenty-six years.115 He is first mentioned as theleader of a company of traveling players who were granted a license by Sir Henry


109 Farriers’ Apprentice Bindings (Guildhall Library MS 5526/1), pp. 42 (Yockney), 51(Wright), 81 (Young). At the same time he bound Wright, Goodwin promised to give him a trebleviol or treble cornet at the end of his apprenticeship. Wright’s first apprentice was actually Young,whom Goodwin turned over to him on 4 February 1634; Wright’s second apprentice, JohnCourtney, was turned over by Goodwin’s widow, Margaret, on 27 October 1635. Biographies ofYockney and Young can be found in Ashbee and Lasocki, 1179–80 and 1184–86.

110 Nungezer, 158; and Benbow.111 Barber-Surgeons’ Register of Freedom Admissions 1522–1664 (Guildhall Library MS

5265/1, now on microfilm), fol. 14v.112 Guildhall Library MS 5265/1, fol. 34v.113 Parish Register, Guildhall Library MS 8872/1. If this was the player, then he cannot have been

the son of the Ellis Guest, butcher, whose goods were administered in 1604, as conjectured byHonigmann and Brock, 7.

114 Pewterers’ Wardens’ Accounts 1572–1663 (Guildhall Library MS 7086/3), fol. 275r (Guest’sbinding), fol. 321r (his freedom). The Pewterers lumped together all binding and freedom records foreach fiscal year (Michaelmas to Michaelmas) without recording specific dates.

115 Pewterers’ Register of the Livery and Yeomanry, 1570–1677 (Guildhall Library MS 7095/1).


Herbert in 1625, and over the next decade he led a variety of traveling companies,in one instance teaming with Errington (as noted above).116 The careers ofErrington and Guest are oddly parallel. Despite the twelve-year difference in theirages, both became free of the Pewterers around the same time, both surface morethan a decade later as leaders of touring companies, and both vanish from therecords (theatrical and livery-company) at the same time.

John Heywood, Stationer and Mercer (c. 1497–c. 1579). Playwright, leader of boycompanies. Though he is most famous as a playwright and epigrammatist,Heywood was also involved with a number of children’s companies that presentedplays at court over several decades. He is generally assumed to be the Heywoodwho was paid for “playeng an enterlude wt his Children” before Princess Mary inMarch 1538, and who was rewarded along with Sebastian Westcott of St. Paul’s fora children’s performance before Princess Elizabeth on 13 February 1552; and in1559, after Elizabeth’s accession, she saw “a play of the Chylderyn of Powlles andther Master Seb[astian], Master Phelypes, and Master Heywood.”117

Heywood was also a freeman, being successively free of the Stationers andthen the Mercers. He was made free of the city of London in 1523 at the requestof Henry VIII, and probably bought his freedom in the Stationers by redemptionshortly thereafter when he married the widow of Stationer Richard Pynson Jr.,who was the daughter of the printer John Rastell.118 On 30 January 1530, at theurging of his wife’s uncle, Sir Thomas More, Heywood was granted the office ofMeter of Linen Cloth and was simultaneously translated from the Stationers tothe Mercers with the consent of both companies.119 The early apprentice-bindingbooks of the Mercers do not survive, but in 1542 John Vincente, “late apprenticeof John Heyewode,” was made free of the company.120 Might Vincente have beenone of Heywood’s “Children” who played an interlude before Princess Mary in1538?


116 See Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:453–54.117 Ashbee and Lasocki, 568–70.118 Heywood’s 1523 freedom is noted by Ashbee and Lasocki, 568; and by John M. Ward in Sadie,

ed., 11:477, who mistakenly says that Heywood became free of the Mercers in 1524. The status ofHeywood’s wife, Joan Rastell Revell Pynson Heywood, is noted in Peter Blayney, The Stationers’Company Before the Charter, 1403–1557 (London: Stationers’ Company, 2003), 29.

119 Company of Mercers, Acts of Court 1527 to 1560, fol. 27r; Corporation of London, Repertory8, fol. 83v; and Corporation of London, Letter Book ‘O’, fol. 206v. The first two of these records werebrought to my attention by Peter Blayney (personal communication, 2 July 2002), and the last wascited by A. W. Reed in his Early Tudor Drama ([London: Methuen, 1926], 46).

120 List of the Members of the Mercers’ Company from 1343, p. 512. In this and subsequent cita-tions, page numbers refer to the company’s typewritten transcript of the original volume, whosepages are unnumbered.


William Hunnis, Grocer (d. 1597). Leader of boy company. On 11 November1560 Hunnis paid 40s and pawned £10 worth of jewelry to be admitted as a free-man of the Grocers by redemption.121 Immediately afterward, he married AgnesBlancke, the widow of John Blagge (who was free of the Grocers) and of RichardBlancke (who was free of the Haberdashers but a grocer by trade), and took overBlancke’s house and shop at the south end of London Bridge in St. Olave,Southwark.122 On 11 March 1562 the court of the Grocers’ Company forcedHunnis to pawn a gold chain and two rings in order to retain a former apprenticeof Blancke’s, and the following year these items were returned to him. In 1566Hunnis was elected to the livery of the Grocers’ Company, and on 15 November ofthat year he became Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal.123 The childrenunder Hunnis presented plays at court regularly from 1567 until 1584, except from1575 to 1580, when Richard Farrant was acting master. Hunnis continued to payhis quarterage dues to the Grocers until the late 1580s.124

Anthony Jeffes, Brewer (1578–1648). Actor. Jeffes’s first known stage experiencewas as a boy-actor with the German branch of the Lord Admiral’s Men: he went toWolfenbüttel with Robert Browne of the Admiral’s in 1592, was paid in 1595 as“Anthoniussen Jeffes,” and returned to London by 1597.125 Jeffes appears quite oftenin Henslowe’s diary between 1597 and 1602 as a member of the Admiral’s Men, andhe is named in player lists made after the company became Prince Henry’s Men in1603 and throughout the first decade of the seventeenth century. In the middle ofthis period, on 14 April 1605, he paid 2s to become free of the Brewers by redemp-tion, and three years later, on 25 October 1608, he paid a further 6s 8d to be admit-ted to the “brethren” of the company, which required him to pay quarterage dues.Over the last four months of 1609, Jeffes bound one apprentice in the Brewers andhad four others turned over to him; at the same time, the St. Giles Cripplegate


121 Grocers’ Orders of the Court of Assistants 1556–1591 (Guildhall Library MS 11588/1), tran-scribed in C. C. Stopes, William Hunnis and the Revels of the Chapel Royal (Louvain: A. Uystpruyst,1910), 123–24.

122 Blagge’s will was proved on 24 May 1552, and Blancke’s will was dated 15 May 1560, only sixmonths before his widow married Hunnis (Stopes, 122–24). Stopes was unable to find a record ofthe marriage of William Hunnis and Agnes Blancke, probably because it took place in St. Olave,Southwark, whose registers begin only in 1583.

123 Grocers’ Orders of the Court of Assistants 1556–1591 (Guildhall Library MS 11588/1), fol.57v; Grocers’ Wardens’ Accounts 1555–1578 (Guildhall Library MS 11571/6), fol. 180v.

124 This account of Hunnis is based on Ashbee and Lasocki, 610–12; and on Stopes, 121–31.125 Willem Schrickx,“English Actors at the Courts of Wolfenbüttel, Brussels and Graz during the

Lifetime of Shakespeare,” Shakespeare Survey 33 (1980): 153–68, esp. 157ff; Willem Schrickx,“EnglishActors’ Names in German Archives and Elizabethan Theatre History,” Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft West Jahrbuch (1982): 146–61, esp. 151.


parish register starts calling him “brewer” rather than “player,” suggesting that he hadbecome a brewer by profession as well as a Brewer.126 He was quite active in com-pany affairs for the next twenty-plus years, taking fifteen apprentices between 1610and 1621 and being elected a warden of the company in 1622. (Since Jeffes hadgiven up acting, his apprentices were presumably all trained as brewers.) In the early1630s he began to experience financial difficulties, and from 1633 until his death in1648 he was on the company’s poor rolls, receiving a regular pension.127

Ben Jonson, Bricklayer (c. 1572–1637). Actor, playwright. Jonson’s stepfatherRobert Brett was a bricklayer by profession, free of the Company of Tylers andBricklayers; in fact, Brett was master of the company when he died in 1609.128

Jonson was a freeman of the Tylers and Bricklayers himself by 29 June 1596, whenhe paid his quarterage dues for a period extending back at least to Michaelmas 1595and probably to Michaelmas 1594.129 Mary Edmond thought that Jonson hadbecome a freeman by patrimony through Brett, but freedom by patrimony wasavailable only to biological sons, not stepsons. Mark Eccles argued plausibly thatJonson could have been apprenticed to Brett in 1587 at the age of fifteen, served anapprenticeship for the standard seven years, and been freed around Michaelmas1594, just before he married Anne Lewis on 14 November of that year.130 Jonsonkept paying his quarterage dues at irregular intervals up to the end of 1602, duringthe period when he was rapidly rising to fame. Even though his status as aBricklayer provided satiric fodder for his detractors, Jonson evidently thought itworthwhile to remain a member of the company in good standing.131


126 See Brewers’ Wardens’ Account 1582–1616 (Guildhall Library MS 5442/5) and CourtMinutes 1604–1612 (Guildhall Library MS 5445/12), both unpaginated; and Nungezer, 203.

127 See S. P. Cerasano, “Anthony Jeffes, Player and Brewer,” Notes & Queries 229 (1984): 221–25;and Eccles, “Actors II,” 460. Cerasano provides much valuable information about Jeffes’s career as abrewer, but she missed his initial freedom in 1605, mistakenly taking his 1608 admission into thebrethren as a freedom admission.

128 Thomas Fuller and John Aubrey had mentioned in the seventeenth century that Jonson’s step-father was a bricklayer, but this man was first identified as Robert Brett by Mark Eccles in his essay“Jonson’s Marriage,” Review of English Studies 12 (1936): 257–72.

129 Tylers and Bricklayers’ Quarterage Book (Guildhall Library MS 3051/1), cited by MaryEdmond,“Pembroke’s Men,” Review of English Studies 25 (1974): 129–36, esp. 135.

130 Mark Eccles,“Ben Jonson, ‘Citizen and Bricklayer’,” Notes & Queries 233 (1988): 445–46.131 In Thomas Dekker’s Satiromastix (1601) the character representing Jonson is called a “whoore-

son poore lyme and hayre-rascall” (1.2.281) and a “Morter-treader” (4.2.47), and is mocked for hisreliance on “Ouids Mortar-Morphesis” (5.2.188); see The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, ed.Fredson Bowers, 4 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1953–61), 1:324, 355, 379. The anonymousauthor of 2 The Return from Parnassus (1601–02) calls Jonson “the wittiest fellow of a bricklayer inEngland” (1.2.293); see Three Parnassus Plays (1598–1601), ed. J. B. Leishman (London: Nicholsonand Watson, 1949).


After 1602 Jonson let his membership lapse, but on 1 May 1611 he paid 11s 4din quarterage dues, covering the previous eight years.132 Around the same time, theBricklayers paid 10s 8d “for wyne and suger for Beniamin Iohnson.”133 The purposeof this substantial outlay is not certain; perhaps the company was welcoming Jonsonback into their active ranks by celebrating in a tavern. One year later, on 1 May1612, Jonson bound John Catlin, son of John Catlin, deceased Bricklayer, ofBirmingham, Warwickshire, as his apprentice for a term of eight years.134 The exactpurpose of the binding is unclear. Jonson went to France as the tutor of Wat Raleighin 1612–13; did he bring Catlin along for some reason? Or did he perhaps rentCatlin out to a professional playing company? In Christmas His Masque, written a fewyears later, Jonson has Venus brag about her son, the “play boy” Cupid: “I could ha’had money enough for him an I would ha’ been tempted, and ha’ let him out by theweek to the king’s players; Master Burbage has been about and about with me; andso has old Master Hemminges too, they ha’ need of him.”135

Thomas Kendall, Haberdasher (1561?–1608). Leader of boy company. In 1587Kendall was made free of the Haberdashers by servitude; unfortunately, twoThomas Kendalls were freed that year within five weeks of each other (one on 28July through apprenticeship with John Newdick, the other on 1 September throughapprenticeship with Robert Sadler), and it is impossible to tell which of the two isthe theatrical manager.136 The Blackfriars Kendall married Anne Tipsley on 21January 1590 at St. Mary Le Strand and later apprenticed his wife’s relative (possi-bly brother) Francis Tipsley, who was freed on 9 March 1603. When a Haberdasherbecame Lord Mayor in 1604, Kendall and Tipsley were paid by the Haberdashers“for furnishing the children wth apparrell and other thinges needfull for the shewe,”that is, the traditional Lord Mayor’s pageant.137

By this time Kendall was also involved in the management of the Children of theChapel at the Blackfriars; he had signed articles of agreement for the company in


132 Guildhall Library MS 3051/1.133 Guildhall Library MS 3054/1.134 Guildhall Library MS 3045/1, fol. 17r. The page with Jonson’s binding of Catlin is actually the

first one in the volume as it now stands, despite being labeled fol. 17. The record states that paymentwas made on 29 June but notes that the apprenticeship started on the feast of the apostles Philip andJames (1 May).

135 Ben Jonson, Christmas His Masque in Court Masques: Jacobean and Caroline Entertainments,1605–1640, ed. David Lindley (Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1995), 109–16, esp. 112.

136 Haberdashers’ Register of Freedom Admissions 1526–1642 (Guildhall Library MS 15857/1),fol. 128r.

137 Smith, “Personnel,” 443, which is the source of all information in this paragraph unless other-wise noted. Interesting information about Kendall also appears in Mark Eccles,“Martin Peerson andthe Blackfriars,” Shakespeare Survey 11 (1958): 100–106.


1602 after Henry Evans was forced out, and was one of its patentees in 1604 whenit was called the Children of the Queen’s Revels. Of most interest for my purposesis a lawsuit filed by Kendall in 1607 against Alice Cooke, whose son Abel had beenapprenticed to Kendall in November 1606.138 According to the contract, repro-duced in the lawsuit, Cooke was bound to Kendall for a term of three years (thesame term specified in Martin Slater’s agreement with the Children of the King’sRevels), during which “the said Abell shall practice and exercise himself in the qual-ity of playing, as one of the Queen’s majesty’s children of her Revels aforesaid.”139

But Cooke left Kendall in May 1607 after only six months, leading to the lawsuit.Cooke’s apprenticeship with Kendall does not appear in the Haberdashers’ Registerof Apprentice Bindings (Guildhall Library MS 15860/3), but, as with Slater, itseems very unlikely that Kendall’s status as a freeman is completely irrelevant.Kendall died in 1608, amid a flurry of lawsuits resulting from the demise of theBlackfriars Boys.140

Robert Keysar, Goldsmith (1576–c. 1640). Investor in boy companies. Keysar wasapprenticed at Michaelmas 1591 to Robert Williamson, a Goldsmith of somewhatdubious reputation, but served the last five years of his apprenticeship with hisbrother, John Keysar, before becoming free of the Goldsmiths in October 1598.Around 1606 Keysar appears to have given up goldsmithing in favor of various ven-tures, including an investment in the Blackfriars playhouse; for a while in 1608 hewas even nominally in charge of the company before it collapsed in the same year.Keysar then entered into a short-lived venture with Philip Rosseter for a boy com-pany at Whitefriars, after which he withdrew from theatrical activities for good.141

John Lowin, Goldsmith (1576–1653). Actor. At Christmas 1593 Lowin wasapprenticed as a Goldsmith for eight years to Nicholas Rudyard.142 In 1602–3, heappears in Henslowe’s diary as a member of Worcester’s Men, and by the end of1603, he was a member of the King’s Men. No record of his freedom appears in theGoldsmiths’ court books, but he probably became free of the company in 1601–2 andwas certainly free by 1611. When Goldsmith James Pemberton was being installed


138 If the player was the Abel Cooke who was baptized at Allhallows London Wall on 4 April 1589(according to the International Genealogial Index), then he was seventeen years old when he wasapprenticed to Kendall.

139 PRO King’s Bench 27/1357, membrane 582, transcribed in Wickham, Berry, and Ingram, eds.,269.

140 Kendall’s will is reproduced in abstract by Honigmann and Brock, 79–80; and the Blackfriarslawsuits are summarized in Wickham, Berry, and Ingram, eds., 514–22.

141 See William Ingram, “Robert Keysar, Playhouse Speculator,” Shakespeare Quarterly 37 (1986):476–85.

142 Goldsmiths’ Apprentice Book 1, fol. 98r.


as Lord Mayor that year, Lowin was employed by the company to play the part ofLepston in the Lord Mayor’s show written by Anthony Munday, Chruso-Thriambos,the Triumphs of Golde, and to provide his own horse for the show. In the Goldsmiths’Court Minute Book for 3 September 1611 he is described as “Iohn Lowen one of hisMa:ties players and brother of this Companie,” a phrase used only of freemen.

On 24 January 1612 Lowin bound his first apprentice, Michael Bedell, son ofLeonard Bedell, yeoman, of Middlesex, for a term of ten years. Bedell was probablythe “Mighell” who played a huntsman and a captain for the King’s Men in Sir JohnVan Olden Barnavelt in August 1619; Michael was not a very common name, andBedell would have been in his early twenties at the time, nearing the end of hisapprenticeship.143 Lowin subsequently bound Thomas Jeffrey, son of EdmundJeffrey, citizen and Merchant Taylor, of London (on 15 April 1614 for a term ofseven years), and George Varnum, son of William Varnum, gentleman, of Langham,Cheshire (on 9 May 1617 for a term of seven years).144 Between 1624 and 1630George Vernon (undoubtedly the same person as “Varnum,” whose term expired in1624) was a player with the King’s Men and had three children christened at St.Saviour’s Southwark.145 Jeffrey cannot be definitely traced with the King’s Men, butI consider him a hitherto-unknown boy-player. Lowin bound no more apprenticesas Goldsmiths, but he served as one of several business managers for the Kings’ Menafter John Heminges’s death in 1630 and remained associated with the companyuntil his own death in 1653.146

George Maller, Merchant Taylor? Glazier? (c. 1490–c. 1540). Actor. Maller wasa member of Henry VIII’s court interluders from the mid-1520s to about 1540,during which time he was involved in two lawsuits of theatrical interest. In 1529Maller became embroiled in a series of lawsuits against Thomas Arthur, who hadapprenticed himself to Maller for one year,“him to teach in playing of interludes andplays, whereby he might attain and come to be one of the King’s players.”147 Malleris described in the bill of complaint as a glazier, suggesting that he was free of the


143 Goldsmiths’ Apprentice Book 1, fol. 201r; Nungezer, 251. The 1612 entry describes Lowin as“John Lowen cittizen and gold smith of london,” removing any doubt as to whether he was free ofthe Goldsmiths.

144 Goldsmiths’ Apprentice Book 1, fols. 214r and 230v.145 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:611–12.146 The most complete account of Lowin’s career is Rick Bowers,“John Lowin: Actor-Manager of

the King’s Company, 1603–1642,” Theatre Survey 28 (1987): 15–35. However, Bowers missed therecords of Lowin’s apprentices in the Goldsmiths’ apprentice book.

147 For more information on Maller’s playing career, see Nungezer, 250; and Ian Lancashire,Dramatic Texts and Records of Britain: A Chronological Topography to 1558 (Toronto and Buffalo: U ofToronto P, 1984), 389.The bill of complaint, the only surviving document from the 1529 suit, is tran-scribed in Wickham, Berry, and Ingram, eds., 275–77.


Company of Glaziers and formally apprenticed Arthur in that company. However,the Glaziers’ apprentice-binding books survive only from 1694 onward.

Around 1530 Maller deposed in another lawsuit involving the printer-play-wright-adventurer John Rastell, in which Rastell claimed that Henry Walton hadinappropriately lent out theatrical costumes belonging to Rastell while the latterwas overseas. Here Maller describes himself as “George Mayler of London, mer-chant tailor, of the age of forty years.”148 The company’s freedom admissions do notsurvive for the relevant years, but since only freemen of the Merchant Taylors wereallowed to describe themselves in this way, the most likely scenario is that Mallerwas free of the Merchant Taylors but had at some time practiced the trade of aglazier.149

Anthony Munday, Draper (1560–1633). Playwright. Munday, the son ofChristopher Munday, a freeman of the Drapers who was a stationer by trade, wasorphaned at an early age. On 1 October 1576, at the age of sixteen, Anthony wasapprenticed as a stationer to John Allde, but soon afterward he left Allde to beginhis long career as a prolific writer of ballads, translations, and plays.150 On 12January 1581, some ten months short of reaching majority, Munday convinced theCourt of Orphans that he was twenty-one years old in order to receive his portion,even though he had actually been baptized on 13 October 1560. On 21 June 1585he claimed his freedom in the Drapers by patrimony, being described as “a Poet byCriplegate,” and he paid quarterage dues to the Drapers from at least 1605 (the firstyear for which quarterage records survive) to 1626.151 Between 1602 and 1623 hecontributed to at least fifteen Lord Mayor’s pageants, calling himself “citizen anddraper” on the title pages of the printed texts. Munday’s son Richard worked on sev-eral of these pageants as a painter-stainer, and on 13 January 1613 Richard Mundayalso claimed his freedom in the Drapers by patrimony.152 In 1611 Munday received


148 Numerous documents from this suit are transcribed in Wickham, Berry, and Ingram, eds.,229–32.

149 Thanks to Peter Blayney for this suggestion. The Merchant Taylors’ list of freedom admissionsgoes back only to 1530, and the wardens’ accounts (which also contain freedom admissions) between1484 and 1545 are missing.

150 Edward Arber, ed., Transcript of the Register of the Company of Stationers, 1554–1640 A. D., 5 vols.(New York: P. Smith, 1950), 2:69.

151 Mark Eccles, “Anthony Munday” in Studies in the English Renaissance Drama, Josephine Bennett,Oscar Cargill, and Vernon Hall Jr., eds. (New York: New York UP, 1959), 95–105; Drapers’ FreedomList 1567–1656 (MS +278/F.A. 1), p. 53, transcribed by Robertson and Gordon, 165; Drapers’Quarterage Book 1605–1618 (MS +261/Q.B. 1) and 1617–28 (MS +259/Q.B. 2).

152 David Bergeron, “Anthony Munday: Pageant Poet to the City of London,” Huntington LibraryQuarterly 30 (1967): 345–68; Drapers’ Freedom List 1567–1656 (MS +278/F.A. 1), p. 141, tran-scribed by Robertson and Gordon, eds., 177.


rewards from the Goldsmiths and the Merchant Taylors for presentation copies ofhis Brief Chronicle; in 1618 he received rewards from the Skinners, Goldsmiths, andMerchant Taylors for his continuation of Stow’s Survey of London; and in 1634, afterhis death, his widow received rewards from the Barber-Surgeons, Goldsmiths,Merchant Taylors, Vintners, Skinners, Ironmongers, and Drapers for his new edi-tion of Stow’s Survey.153

John Newton, Haberdasher (c. 1587–1625). Actor. On 23 July 1604, JohnNewton, son of John Newton of St. Leonard Shoreditch, was apprenticed as aHaberdasher for a term of seven years to Edmund Kendall, brother of the ThomasKendall who helped to manage the Blackfriars Boys.154 This apprenticeship maymean that Newton had some connection with the Blackfriars; in any case, he wasfreed as a Haberdasher in 1611.155 He had already been listed in a 1610 patent as amember of the Duke of York’s Men (later to become Prince Charles’s Men), and hewas identified in a series of 1611 depositions as a sharer in the duke’s company at theBoar’s Head.156 He was to remain one of that company’s lead comedians until hisdeath in 1625.157 On 24 June 1614 John Newton, Haberdasher, of St. Bartholomewthe Less, was bound over to keep the peace toward Richard Middleton.158 We can befairly confident that this record refers to the player because his sureties were twoplayers, Robert Hamlen and Henry Clay, and in the previous year Newton had givensurety for the actors Martin Slater and Robert Dawes. Hamlen and Dawes had beenmembers of the Duke of York’s Men in 1610 alongside Newton.159

Arthur Savill, Goldsmith (1617–after 1639). Actor. Savill was baptized in St.James Clerkenwell on 27 February 1617, the son of Cordaile Savill, gentleman. Asnoted above, Savill was apprenticed to Andrew Cane as a Goldsmith on 5 August1631 and played the gentlewoman Quartilla (alongside Cane as Trimalchio) forPrince Charles’s Men at Salisbury Court in December 1631.160 The month beforethis performance, Elizabeth Holland, the widow of Aaron Holland, builder of theRed Bull playhouse, left 40s in her will to “Arthur Savill Apprentice vnto mr CaineGoldsmith London.”161 Eight years later, on 19 July 1639, Arthur Savill became free


153 Robertson and Gordon, eds., 176–82.154 Haberdashers’ Register of Apprentice Bindings, Guildhall Library MS 15860/3.155 Haberdashers’ Register of Freedom Admissions 1526–1642, Guildhall Library MS 15857/1,

fol. 165r.156 See Loreen L. Giese, “Theatrical Citings and Bitings: Some References to Playhouses and

Players in London Consistory Court Depositions, 1586–1611,” Early Theatre 1 (1998): 113–25.157 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:515–16.158 Mark Eccles,“Elizabethan Actors III: K–R,” Notes & Queries 237 (1992): 293–303, esp. 299.159 Eccles,“Actors III,” 299.160 Goldsmiths’ Apprentice Book 1, fol. 305r.161 Ingram,“Arthur Savill, Stage Player,” 21–22.


of the Goldsmiths.162 No specific roles beyond Quartilla are known for him, but thetestimony of his fellow apprentice Wright indicates that Cane’s apprentices werekept busy on stage.

John Shank, Weaver (d. 1636). Actor. Shank can be identified as a freeman of theWeavers, since he described himself in his will as “Iohn Shancke one of hisM[ajesty’s] servants the players and Citizen and Weaver of London.”163 He does notappear in the oldest surviving Weavers’ freedom register, which covers the period1600 to 1646; so presumably he gained his freedom before 1600.164 Shank wrote inthe 1635 Sharers’ Papers that he had first served Henry Herbert, earl of Pembroke,and then Queen Elizabeth, but the first independent record of him as a player iswith the Prince’s-Palsgrave’s Men in 1610 and 1613. A “John Shancke, weaver,” ofKent Street in Surrey gave bail in 1612/13, and if this was the player’s father, hisfreedom may have been by patrimony.165

Shank had joined the King’s Men by 1619, the time at which some of the eventsdescribed in the Sharers’ Papers took place. Shank wrote that he had, “of his ownpurse, supplied the company for the service of his majesty with boys, as ThomasPollard, John Thompson, deceased (for whom he paid £40), your suppliant havingpaid his part of £200 for other boys since his coming to the company—JohnHonyman, Thomas Holcombe and divers others—and at this time maintains threemore for the said service.”166 Holcombe, as we saw above, was apprenticed to JohnHeminges as a Grocer in 1618, and Shank seems to imply that Pollard andThompson had been apprenticed to him; unfortunately, no records of apprenticebindings for the Weavers survive from this period.167

Martin Slater, Ironmonger (c. 1560–1625). Actor, leader of boy company. On 17January 1581 Slater bound himself as an apprentice to Richard Smith,Ironmonger.168 While the Ironmongers’ register of freedom admissions for the1580s has been damaged, leaving us without an exact date for Slater’s freedom, thereis a July 1594 entry in the Ironmongers’ cash book in which “marten slaetter a plaer”is listed as owing back quarterage dues for the past six and three-quarters years.169


162 Ingram,“Arthur Savill, Stage Player,” 21–22.163 Honigmann and Brock, 186–90.164 Guildhall Library MS 4656/1.165 Mark Eccles,“Elizabethan Actors IV: S to End,” Notes & Queries 238 (1993): 167–68.166 Wickham, Berry, and Ingram, eds., 225.167 The Weavers’ court minutes for 1610–19 do survive (in Guildhall Library MS 4655/1), and

Shank does not appear there; but this merely means that he did not get into trouble with the compa-ny. Neither Pollard nor Thompson appears in the 1600–1646 Weavers’ freedom register, cited above.

168 Ironmongers’ Presentment Book (formerly Guildhall Library MS 16981/1, now in the custodyof the Ironmongers but available on microfilm at the Guildhall Library); Slater’s oath in this book isautograph.


We can thus deduce that he must have been freed in late 1587. Over the next thir-ty years Slater continued to appear in the cash book as a freeman of the Ironmongerswhile simultaneously pursuing a wide range of theatrical activities, including actingwith various companies and investing in the Red Bull playhouse in 1605.170

In 1607 Slater apparently decided to become more active in the Ironmongers’ liv-ery company; he paid nearly twenty years’ worth of back quarterage dues in onelump sum and was listed among “such parsones wch for the most parte macke goodapperannce.”171 The following year the struggling Children of the King’s Revels atthe Whitefriars recruited him to be their manager. The company’s agreement withhim, preserved in subsequent lawsuits, called Slater “citizen and ironmonger” andspecified that the children of the company would be bound to him for a period ofthree years. None of these children are mentioned in the Ironmongers’ apprentice-binding book; in fact, Slater does not appear to have bound any apprentices asIronmongers in nearly forty years with the company.172 Nevertheless, Slater’s statusas a freeman seems to have been relevant to his agreement with the Children of theKing’s Revels, and it is suggestive that he squared his accounts with theIronmongers just before the agreement was made.

RRiicchhaarrdd TTaarrllttoonn, Haberdasher and Vintner (d. 1588). Actor. At some pointbefore 1569, Tarlton was apprenticed as a Haberdasher to Raphe Boswell, and hewas eventually freed on 26 September 1576.173 On 11 February 1577, while a mem-ber of Sussex’s Men, Tarlton married Thomasine Dann in Chelmsford, Essex.174

The wedding took place near the home of Lady Frances Mildmay, the earl ofSussex’s sister, to whom Tarlton dedicated Tarleton’s Tragicall Treatises the followingyear.175 Tarlton’s Jests claims that Tarlton kept an ordinary in Paternoster Row and atavern, called the Saba, in Gracechurch Street, which implies that he was free of theCompany of Vintners. In fact, he was: on 27 May 1584 Tarleton was translated from


169 Guildhall Library MS 16977/1, available on microfilm at the Guildhall Library; Ironmongers’Cash Book 1593–1628 (Guildhall Library MS 16987/2), p. 20.

170 For descriptions of these activities, see Nungezer, 329–31; and Eccles,“Actors IV,” 169–72.171 Ironmongers’ Cash Book 1593–1628 (Guildhall Library MS 16987/2), p. 224.172 The 1608 agreement is reproduced in Wickham, Berry, and Ingram, eds., 269–71. I searched

the Ironmongers’ Presentment Book from 1587 to 1624 but found no apprentices bound to Slater.However, this book does not appear to include all apprentices bound in the company.

173 Haberdashers’ Register of Freedom Admissions 1526–1642 (Guildhall Library MS 15857/1),fol. 114v.

174 Parish Register of Chelmsford St. Mary, St. Peter, and St. Cedd, Essex Record Office MS D/P94/1/2.

175 See L. B. Campbell,“Richard Tarlton and the Earthquake of 1580,” Huntington Library Quarterly4 (1941): 293–301; and Eccles, “Actors IV,” 173. Tarlton’s publications are described by Nungezer,who also gives an exhaustive list of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century allusions to Tarlton(347–65).


the Haberdashers to the Vintners at his own request, and on 4 October 1584“Richard Tharleton” paid 20d to become free of the Vintners by redemption.176 Tendays later, on 14 October, he bound an apprentice, Richard Haywarde.177 WhileTarlton may have bound Haywarde to help in his taverns, it is more likely thatHaywarde was bound to act with the Queen’s Men and is the earliest boy-playerwhose name we know. On 23 December 1585 “Thamsyn the wief of RichardTarlton vintener” was buried at St. Martin Ludgate, and Tarlton himself was buriedat St. Leonard Shoreditch on 3 September 1588.178

Henry Totnell, Barber-Surgeon (c. 1538–1593). Actor. Totnell was freed as aBarber-Surgeon on 20 January 1562 after serving an apprenticeship with RobertSprignell, and on 25 April of that year he married Elizabeth Richardson at St. MaryLe Bow in London. Over the next two decades he freed two apprentices in the com-pany: Henry Boyst on 15 January 1572, and Nicholas Mannering on 12 February1578.179 On 29 April 1583 he married his second wife, “Jellyand” (Gillian) Daggett,at St. Saviour’s Southwark, and he subsequently had two children christened there:“Richard Totnell sonne of Harrye a barbore” on 5 September 1585 and “Jone Tottnelld of Harrye a player” on 20 March 1591.180 This latter entry in the parish register isthe only record of Totnell as a player, and it is curious to see it coming so late in life,when he must have been in his fifties. Perhaps he was a hired man at the Rose; it istempting, however, to see a connection between Totnell’s apprentice NicholasMannering and Nicholas Mannery, the father of the Samuel Mannery who wasapprenticed to Thomas Goodwin in 1629. In any case, Totnell and his daughter Joanwere both buried at St. Saviour’s in 1593, on 28 January and 1 October respectively.

James Tunstall/Dunstone, Saddler (c. 1555–1599). Actor. Known both as JamesTunstall and James Dunstone, this man was probably the son of Henry Tunstall, afreeman of the Saddlers, who lived in St. Botolph Aldgate and died in 1591. If so,he most likely gained his freedom by patrimony. He first appears as a player withWorcester’s Men in 1583, alongside Edward Alleyn, and he appears frequently inPhilip Henslowe’s records in the 1590s as a member of the Admiral’s Men. In the


176 Haberdashers’ Court Minute Book (Guildhall Library MS 15842/1); Vintners’ Freeman Book1 (Guildhall Library MS 15211/1), fol. 171r. I am grateful to William Ingram for bringing the recordof Tarlton’s translation to my attention.

177 Vintners’ Freeman Book 1 (Guildhall Library MS 15211/1), fol. 171v.178 Guildhall Library MS 10212 (Thomasine Tarlton’s burial, also cited in Eccles, “Actors IV,”

172); Guildhall Library MS 7499/1 (Richard Tarlton’s burial, cited in Nungezer, 351, and else-where).

179 Barber-Surgeons’ Register of Freedom Admissions (Guildhall Library MS 5265/1, fols. 18v,24r, 28r [on microfilm]); and St. Mary Le Bow Parish Register (Guildhall Library MS 4996).

180 St. Saviour’s Southwark Parish Register (London Metropolitan Archive microfilmX097/270).


transcription of his nuncupative will, dated 8 December 1599, he is identified as acitizen and saddler of London, and in the record of his burial two days later he is“Jeames Tunstall Cittizen & sadler of London & a player.”181

Nicholas Underhill, Draper (c. 1608–c. 1634). Playhouse musician and actor.Underhill was the son of John Underhill, musician, of Chichester, Sussex, and mayhave been related to Thomas Underhill. The latter lived in St. Saviour’s Southwarkand was a royal trumpeter from 1603 to 1624.182 Nicholas Underhill was appren-ticed to Ambrose Beeland on 13 October 1620 for a term of twelve years. AlongsideBeeland, he served as a violinist and minor actor for the King’s Men at theBlackfriars until gaining his freedom as a Draper on 22 February 1632.183 Underhillwas certainly with the King’s Men in 1624, and for them he played Shackle in TheSoddered Citizen (c. 1630) and probably a Carthaginian officer (as “Nick”) in BelieveAs You List (1631).184

Underhill bound his only apprentice, Jeremy Short, on 22 May 1633, and by thefollowing year he had moved to the Cockpit, where he was working when he playedthe violin in James Shirley’s masque The Triumph of Peace (1634).185 His only son, thefamous Restoration actor Cave Underhill, was baptized at St. Andrew Holborn on 17March 1634.186 After this date, Nicholas Underhill disappears from the documentaryrecord. He paid quarterage dues to the Drapers only in 1633–34, and his apprenticeJeremy Short was eventually freed in 1652 by Underhill’s former master, Beeland.187


181 Ingram, Business of Playing, 25–29. Ingram speculates about the significance of Tunstall’s statusas a freeman, raising many interesting questions that the present paper, I hope, goes some small waytoward answering.

182 For Thomas Underhill, see Ashbee and Lasocki, 1110; and Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage,2:609–10.

183 Drapers’ Apprentice Bindings 1615–1634 (MS +288/F.B. 2) (Underhill’s binding); FreedomList 1567–1656 (MS +278/F.A. 1), p. 201 (Underhill’s freedom).

184 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:609. It is improbable that Underhill is the “Nick” whoplayed Barnavelt’s wife in Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt in August 1619, which was staged by the King’sMen more than a year before the start of his apprenticeship; the likelier candidate for this role is JohnHeminges’s apprentice Nicholas Crosse.

185 Drapers’ Apprentice Bindings 1615–1634 (MS +288/F.B. 2); and Sabol, 25.186 Philip H. Highfill Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans, compilers of A Biographical

Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800(16 vols. [Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois UP, 1973–93]), note that the register of theMerchant Taylors’ School says that Cave Underhill was the son of Nicholas Underhill, clothworker,and wonder whether this Nicholas was related to the musician/actor with the King’s Men (15:80). Infact, they were the same person; no Nicholas Underhill appears in the records of the Clothworkers’Company, and it is apparent that a clerk merely confused the similar terms draper and clothworker. (Iam grateful to the Clothworkers’ former archivist David Wickham for answering my queries.)

187 Drapers’ Quarterage Book 1628–1642 (MS +260/Q.B. 3) and Freedom List 1567–1656 (MS+278/F.A. 1).


FFrraanncciiss WWaallppoollee, Merchant Taylor (c. 1585–1625). Actor. On 23 April 1599Francis Walpole, son of Henry Walpole of Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, was appren-ticed for eight years to Thomas Godfrey, Merchant Taylor.188 Godfrey died of theplague in September 1604, after which the Merchant Taylors’ Court of Assistantsassigned Walpole to serve the rest of his apprenticeship with Thomas Bicknell,Haberdasher, who subsequently freed Walpole as a Merchant Taylor on 30 June1606.189 Since Walpole later testified that he met the actor Ellis Worth around thistime, he may already have been involved with the stage; or the meeting may simplyhave come about because Worth’s father was a Merchant Taylor.

By 1616, according to his own later testimony, Walpole was a sharer in QueenAnne’s Men at the Red Bull. On 23 January of that year, he bound two apprentices:William Allam, son of Thomas Allam, yeoman, of Kimpston, Bedfordshire, foreight years; and Edward Catesby, son of John Catesby, deceased gentleman, ofHackney, for ten years. Catesby was never freed, but Walpole freed Allam as aMerchant Taylor on 15 March 1624.190 It is tempting to identify this apprenticewith the William Allen who played leading roles for Queen Henrietta’s Men start-ing in the mid-1620s, though the name is so common that the identification cannotbe certain. Walpole testified that he left Queen Anne’s around 1618, and his lateracting career, if any, is undocumented. He did, however, bind another apprentice on11 March 1622: Henry Savadge, son of James Savadge, citizen and joiner ofLondon, for nine years. When he testified on 17 September 1623 in the Chancerysuit Worth v. Baskerville, Walpole described himself as of St. Mary Aldermary,Citizen and Merchant Taylor of London, age thirty-eight. He lived only two moreyears, being buried in St. Mary Aldermary on 26 December 1625.191

John Webster, Merchant Taylor (c. 1580–after 1625). Playwright. Webster wasthe son of John Webster, a wealthy freeman of the Merchant Taylors who was acoachmaker by profession.192 The playwright’s younger brother Edward was


188 Merchant Taylors’ Apprentice Binding Book 1598–1601 (Guildhall Library MS 34038/3),part A, fol. 28v.

189 Merchant Taylors’ Ordinary Court Minutes 1595–1607 (Guildhall Library MS 34017/1), fols.192v and 248v.

190 Merchant Taylors’ Apprentice Binding Book 1613–1616 (Guildhall Library MS 34038/7), p.242; Merchant Taylors’ Ordinary Court Minutes 1619–1630 (Guildhall Library MS 34017/3), p.295.

191 C. J. Sisson,“Notes on Early Stuart Stage History,” Modern Language Review 37 (1942): 25–36,esp. 29; Sisson, “The Red Bull Company,” 68n; Merchant Taylors’ Apprentice Binding Book1617–1622 (Guildhall Library MS 34038/8), p. 150; St. Mary Aldermary parish register (GuildhallLibrary MS 8990/1).

192 The identity of Webster’s father was first established by Mary Edmond in her essay “In Searchof John Webster,” Times Literary Supplement (24 December 1976): 1621–62; further information has


apprenticed to their father and made free of the Merchant Taylors on 3 February1612, following the family trade as a practicing coachmaker. The younger JohnWebster claimed his freedom in the Merchant Taylors by patrimony on 19 June1615, and the 1624 title page of Monuments of Honor, written for the Lord Mayor’spageant for the Merchant Taylors in 1624, identifies the play’s author as “IohnWebster Merchant-Taylor.”193 In the dedication to the Lord Mayor, Webster callshimself “one born free of your company,” meaning that he was free by patrimony.

Thomas Woodford, Grocer (1578–after 1628). Producer/investor in boy compa-nies. Woodford was the son of Gamaliel Woodford, a wealthy member of theGrocers who fell into financial and legal difficulties in 1597; Thomas took up hisfreedom in the Grocers by patrimony on 20 June 1598.194 For the next several yearshe engaged in various business ventures to repair the family’s fortunes, includingserving as a middleman to produce a play for the Children of Paul’s in 1602. Thefamily fortunes eventually improved, but Woodford continued to dabble in theatri-cal investments. He was an investor in the Children of the King’s Revels atWhitefriars in 1607–8 and in the Red Bull in 1612.195

Ellis Worth, Merchant Taylor (c. 1587–1659). Actor. Worth was a member ofthe Queen Anne’s Revels company from 1612 to at least 1623, and in the 1630s heand Andrew Cane were the leaders of the reconstituted Prince Charles’s Men. On30 January 1639, when he is last mentioned as a player, Worth claimed his freedomin the Merchant Taylors by patrimony as the son of Henry Worth, deceased. In1646 he certified the service of John Wright, apprentice of his former fellowAndrew Cane, when Wright claimed his freedom in the Goldsmiths; and in 1655he testified alongside Wright in the Chancery suit de Caine v. Wintershall, describ-ing himself as “Ellis Worth of White Crosse streete in the parishe of St. GylesCripplegate in the County of Middlesex gent aged 67 yeares or thereabouts.”196

John Wright, Goldsmith (c. 1615–c. 1656). Actor. Wright was the son of JohnWright, baker, of St. Giles Cripplegate. As noted above, Wright was apprenticed toAndrew Cane as a Goldsmith on 27 November 1629 for a term of eight years andapparently played Milliscent in Holland’s Leaguer for Prince Charles’s Men in


been provided by Mark Eccles (TLS [21 January 1977]: 71) and Edmond (TLS [11 March 1977]:272).

193 R. G. Howarth,“Two Notes on John Webster,” Modern Language Review 63 (1968): 785–89.194 Grocers’ Wardens’ Accounts 1592–1601 (Guildhall Library MS 11571/8), fol. 573v.195 Ingram, “The Playhouse as an Investment,” 209–30. Herbert Berry summarizes Woodford’s

lawsuits against Aaron Holland regarding the Red Bull; see “The Red Bull” in Wickham, Berry, andIngram, eds., 592–94.

196 Merchant Taylors’ Ordinary Court Minutes 1638–1651 (Guildhall Library MS 34018/3,unpaginated); PRO C24/785/53.


December 1631. No further roles are known for him, but in his 1655 depositionWright gave his age as “40 yeares or thereabouts,” meaning that he was about fifteenwhen apprenticed. He turns up with Beeston’s Boys at the Cockpit in 1639 andfinally became free of the Goldsmiths on 13 March 1646, with his stage colleagueEllis Worth, Merchant Taylor, certifying his service instead of Cane. In the 1650sWright wrote ballads and seems to have been involved with the quasi-theatrical per-formances at the Red Bull until his death around 1656.197

John Young, Mercer (fl. 1534–70). Actor. Young was freed as a Mercer in 1534after serving an apprenticeship with Robert Ferrer.198 Within the next few yearshe was one of Queen Jane Seymour’s players, along with John Slye, DavidSotherne, and John Mounffeld. In 1538 John Young, Mercer, filed a suit inChancery against a man from whom Young and his fellow actors had rented ahorse that proved unfit to carry their playing garments in a tour of northernEngland, “in exercising theire usuall feates of playinge in interludes.”199 In 1539Young replaced John Roo as one of the king’s interluders, and he was still drawingan annuity in 1569–70.

CODA: JOHN RHODES, CITIZEN AND DRAPER

To conclude this survey of theatrical freemen and their apprentices, there is nomore fitting figure than John Rhodes (1600–c. 1669), best known for his role inorganizing some of the first Restoration theatrical companies. Rhodes was heavilyinvolved in theatrical affairs from the 1620s until his death in the late 1660s. He wasalso a freeman of the Drapers; as such, he apprenticed some of the last boys to playfemale roles on the English stage—allowing us to witness the end of the appren-ticeship system that had held sway for more than a century.200

Rhodes was baptized on 27 January 1600 in St. Bride Fleet Street, London, theson of John Rhodes, minister.201 He was apprenticed as a Draper to Thomas Earle


197 Goldsmiths’ Apprentice Book 1, fol. 294v (Wright’s binding); PRO C24/785/53; Bentley,Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:627–28.

198 List of the Members of the Mercers’ Company from 1343, p. 567.199 The suit (PRO C.1.931/39) is described by C. C. Stopes in her Shakespeare’s Environment, 2d

ed. (London: G. Bell, 1918), 235–37; by Nungezer, 403; and by Lancashire, 65–66.200 The following account of Rhodes’s career can be supplemented with recent articles by Paula

Backscheider (“Behind City Walls: Restoration Actors in the Drapers’ Company,” forthcoming inTheatre Survey) and John Astington (“John Rhodes: Draper, Bookseller, and Man of the Theatre,”Theatre Notebook 57 [2003]: 82–87), each of whom refers to documents not cited here.

201 Guildhall Library MS 6536. On 28 June 1641 Rhodes gave his age as forty-two (Beale v.Dulwich College, PRO C24/663/11); and on 29 November 1649 he gave it as “50 yeares or there-abouts” (Lisle v. Dulwich College, PRO C24/728/90), in both cases rounding up by a year. Late inlife he began to shave a few years off his age, misleading some modern investigators. For example, on


on 22 May 1611 for a term of thirteen years and was freed by Earle on 16 March1625.202 His brother Matthew was apprenticed as a Stationer to George Elde on 12October 1612 (by which time their father was dead) and was freed on 3 November1619.203 From the beginning, perhaps through his brother’s connections, Rhodesmade his primary living as a bookseller. In 1628 he was listed among secondhandbooksellers in Little Britain, and his occupation is given as “Bookeseller” in theDrapers’ membership list for the 1641 poll tax. Between 1627 and 1642, Rhodesbound five apprentices as Drapers, but Thomas Stonehouse, the only one to befreed, was listed as a bookseller in Mercer’s Chapel in the 1641 poll-tax list.204

Rhodes also had theatrical connections from an early age. John Downes assert-ed in Roscius Anglicanus that Rhodes had been wardrobe-keeper with the King’s Menat the Blackfriars; he may be the John Rhodes who was a minor actor with theKing’s Men in 1624–25, but this reference may be to the musician John Rhodes whowas buried in 1636. Rhodes was certainly associated with the King’s Men by 1629,when he published Lodowick Carlell’s play The Deserving Favorite under his brotherMatthew’s name.205 Around 1635, Rhodes bought a one-twelfth share in theFortune playhouse, which he still held in 1649, when he and several other tenantswere sued by Dulwich College, the building’s owner, for nonpayment of rent. In1639 a warrant was issued for “Iohn Rodes of ye fortune Playhouse vpon ye com-plaint of the blackfryers Company for selling their Playes.”206 At some point before1647 Rhodes also became a lessee of the Cockpit in Drury Lane, a position used tohis advantage when the playhouses reopened.207


23 April 1656 he gave his age as “50 years and upwards,” leading Leslie Hotson to assert that Rhodeswas “born about 1606” (Hotson, 99–100).

202 Drapers’ Apprentice Bindings 1603–1658 (MS +287/F.B. 1), p. 72; Freedom List 1567–1656(MS +278/F.A. 1), p. 186.

203 D. F. McKenzie, Stationers’ Company Apprentices, 1605–1640 (Charlottesville: BibliographicalSociety of the University of Virginia, 1961), 15. The Stationers’ binding record of Matthew Rhodesidentifies his father as John Rhodes, clerk, of London, deceased.

204 Bentley provides a partial summary of Rhodes’s career and, unless otherwise noted, is mysource for facts in this summary ( Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:544–45). Stonehouse was bound on20 June 1627 for eight years and freed 13 May 1635 (Drapers’ Apprentice Bindings 1615–1634 (MS+288/F.B. 2). The 1641 poll-tax list was printed by A. H. Johnson, A History of the WorshipfulCompany of Drapers of London, 5 vols. (London: Clarendon Press, 1914–22), 4:129–71.

205 See Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 3:115–16; and John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus(London, 1708), 17. On 7 March 1653, the Stationers’ Register transferred John Rhodes’s right to“The Deseruing Fauourite Written by Lodowick Carlell Esqr. formerly printed in the name ofMatthew Rhodes his Brother, but for the vse & benefite of the said Iohn Rhodes” to HumphreyMoseley. The verse epistle in the 1629 edition is signed with John Rhodes’s initials.

206 Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 2:545.207 On 28 June 1641, Rhodes testified that he had known Mathias and Thomas Alleyn, from whom

he bought his Fortune share, for about six years (Beale v. Dulwich College, PRO C24/663/11); see


After binding no apprentices for a dozen years, Rhodes suddenly bound fourwithin a period of four years: Edward Kynaston, son of Thomas Kynaston ofOswestry, Shropshire (bound on 5 July 1654 for nine years); Edward Angell, son ofJohn Angell of St. Martin in the Fields, London (bound on 15 October 1656 fornine years); Christopher Williams, son of Henry Williams of Waltham Abbey,Essex (bound on 10 December 1656, for eight years); and John Nash, son of JohnNash of Clerkenwell, Middlesex (bound on 2 August 1658 for eight years).208 Inearly 1660, with the Protectorate crumbling and the Restoration imminent, Rhodesassembled a company to perform plays at the Cockpit, among whom were hisapprentices Edward Kynaston and Edward Angell.209 John Downes wrote that bothKynaston and Angell played female roles in this company, and there is considerablecontemporary evidence that Kynaston was famous as a performer of women’s parts.On 7 January 1661 Samuel Pepys saw Kynaston play the title role in Ben Jonson’sEpicœne, declaring him both “the prettiest woman in the whole house” and “the hand-somest [man] in the house.”210

But the introduction of actresses on the London stage in late 1660 eliminatedthe need for boy apprentices to play those parts, and the establishment of a two-company monopoly under Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant (neitherplaying at the Cockpit) undercut Rhodes’s influence. Kynaston had ceased playingfemale roles by 1662 at the latest, and the fact that he was married on 27 Februaryof that year indicates that he was no longer apprenticed to Rhodes. By that timeKynaston was a member of the King’s Company, while Rhodes had apparently goneto the rival Duke’s Company, for he was paid for a court performance by that com-pany on 1 November 1662. Among the actors in this performance were CaveUnderhill, son of Draper Nicholas Underhill, whom Rhodes had probably known


also his deposition in the 1649 lawsuit (Lisle v. Dulwich College, PRO C24/728/90). For his lease ofthe Cockpit, see Wickham, Berry, and Ingram, eds., 626, citing PRO C2/Charles I/H44/66 (dated 9July 1647).

208 Drapers’ Apprentice Bindings 1634–1655 (MS +289/F.B. 3) and Apprentice Bindings1655–1689 (MS +290/F.B. 4), both unpaginated. The establishment of Kynaston’s parentageconfirms a note in the Burney Collection at the British Library which says that he was born on 20April 1643. On that date Edward, son of Thomas Kynaston, was born at Oswestry, Shropshire(Oswestry parish register, Shropshire Records and Research Centre MS P214/A/1/1).

209 Thomas Betterton was also a member of this company, and Charles Gildon claimed thatBetterton was also Rhodes’s apprentice, with Kynaston as his under-apprentice. But Betterton doesnot appear in the Drapers’ records, and Betterton himself told Alexander Pope that he had beenapprenticed not to Rhodes but to John Holden, who was free of the Stationers. See Highfill,Burnim, and Langhans, 9:79–85 and 1:83–85; and Charles Gildon, The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton(London, 1710), 5.

210 Robert Latham and William Matthews, eds., The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 11 vols. (Berkeley andLos Angeles: U of California P, 1970–83), 2:7.


with the King’s Men in the late 1620s; Rhodes’s apprentice Edward Angell; and apreviously unknown “Williams,” probably Rhodes’s apprentice ChristopherWilliams.211

Rhodes had one final occasion as a theatrical entrepreneur. On 2 January 1664he was granted a license to perform “Comedyes Historyes Tragedyes EnterludesMorralls Pastoralls Stage Playes Maskes & Showes” anywhere in the kingdomexcept London and Westminster.212 The membership of this traveling company isunknown, but within the next three years Rhodes bound two more apprentices,who presumably performed onstage: Thomas Packwood, son of ChristopherPackwood of London (bound on 12 April 1665 for seven years), and John Rix, sonof John Rix of London, deceased (bound on 17 December 1666 for seven years).In 1667 Rhodes stopped paying quarterage dues to the Drapers for the first timesince 1625, but he was apparently still living in 1669, when he was sued by JohnFall.213 After that he disappears from the record, his long and colorful career finallyover.

The disruptions of the Civil War had badly damaged the English apprentice-ship system. Eventually, with boy apprentices no longer needed on the profession-al stage, the importance of livery companies in the pre-Restoration theater wassimply forgotten. Some modern historians have glimpsed this importance, howev-er. In Impersonations, Stephen Orgel posits a theatrical apprenticeship systemremarkably similar to the one documented here, and he insightfully discusses thesystem’s “large ideological implications” in terms of players’ desire for respectabilityand in terms of the social status of boys and women.214 However, Orgel providesno documentary evidence for this system, whose existence he mostly infers fromBaldwin and Chambers. I hope that the documentation in the preceding pages hasnot only established the outlines of the apprenticeship system used in theElizabethan professional theater but has also provided a foundation for furtherdiscoveries.


211 Hotson, 214–15. I am indebted to Paula Backscheider for first suggesting the identification ofthis “Williams” with Rhodes’s apprentice. The fourth apprentice bound by Rhodes in the 1650s, JohnNash, cannot be traced with any of Rhodes’s companies, but he may be the rope-dancer of that namewho was active in the 1670s; see Highfill, Burnim, and Langhans, 10:414.

212 Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, eds., A Register of English Theatrical Documents 1660–1737,comp. and ed. Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, 2 vols. (Carbondale and Edwardsville: SouthernIllinois UP, 1991), 1:106.

213 See Drapers' Apprentice Bindings 1655–1689 (MS +290/F.B. 4) (bindings of Packwood andRix); and Milhous and Hume, eds., 1:106.

214 Stephen Orgel, Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare’s England (Cambridge:Cambridge UP, 1996), 64–74, esp. 67; and personal communication, 23 October 2002.


APPENDIX: ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THEATRICAL FREEMEN AND APPRENTICES

Name Company Bound (master) Freed (method)*Adson, John (musician) Musicians before 1614Allam, William (boy) Merch. Taylors 23 Jan 1616 (Walpole) 15 Mar 1624 (s)Alleyn, John (actor?) Innholders betw. 1576–80 (p?)Angell, Edward (boy) Drapers 15 Oct 1656 (Rhodes)Armin, Robert (actor) Goldsmiths 13 Oct 1581

Goldsmiths Michaelmas 1582 27 Jan 1604 (s)Barry, Lording (playwright) Fishmongers before 1610 (p)Bartlett, William (boy) Apothecaries before 1630 (Bugge)Bedell, Michael (boy) Goldsmiths 24 Jan 1612 (Lowin)Beeland, Ambrose (musician) Drapers 3 Sep 1619 (s)Belte, Thomas (boy) Grocers 12 Nov 1595 (Heminges)Browne, George (boy) Apothecaries 25 Mar 1630 (Bugge)Bugge, John (actor) Apothecaries 14 Dec 1620Burbage, James (actor) Joiners before 1576Burgh, George (boy) Grocers 4 Jul 1610 (Heminges)Cane, Andrew (actor) Goldsmiths 24 Aug 1602 25 Jan 1611 (s)Catesby, Edward (boy) Merch. Taylors 23 Jan 1616 (Walpole)Catlin, John (boy?) Bricklayers 29 Jun 1612 ( Jonson)Collins, Jeffrey (musician) Farriers before 1626Cooke, Alexander (actor) Grocers 26 Jan 1597 (Heminges) 22 Mar 1609 (s)Crane, William (boy leader) Mercers 12 May 1526 (r?)Crosse, Nicholas (boy) Grocers 25 May 1614 (Heminges)Downton, Thomas (actor) Vintners 13 Feb 1618 (r)Drew, Thomas (actor) Fishmongers 11 Oct 1619 (p)Dutton, John (actor) Weavers before 1573Dutton, Lawrence (actor) Weavers before 1573Errington, Richard (actor) Pewterers c. 1609 (p?)Evans, Henry (boy leader) Scriveners 1561 26 Aug 1567 (s)Gibbins, Thomas (boy?) Goldsmiths 22 Nov 1633 (Cane)Goodale, Thomas (actor) Mercers before 1593 (p?)Goodwin, Thomas (musician) Farriers before 1619Goughe, Thomas (actor) Barber-Surgeons 7 Oct 1572 (s)Guest, Ellis (actor) Pewterers 1605–6 1612–13 (s)Hammerton, Stephen (boy) Merch. Taylors 5 Dec 1631Haynes, Walter (boy) Grocers 28 Mar 1610 (Cooke)Haywarde, Richard (boy?) Vintners 14 Oct 1584 (Tarlton)Heminges, John (actor) Grocers 25 May 1578 24 Apr 1587 (s)Heywood, John (boy leader) Stationers 1523 (r?)

Mercers 30 Jan 1530 (t)Hilton, John (boy?) Goldsmiths 7 Jan 1612 (Cane)

* Parenthetic abbreviations p, r, s, and t stand for patrimony, redemption, servitude, and translation.

KathmanAppendixfinal.qxd 7/2/2004 2:16 PM

Name Company Bound (master) Freed (method)Holcombe, Thomas (boy) Grocers 22 Apr 1618 (Heminges)Hunnis, William (boy leader) Grocers 11 Nov 1560 (r)Hunter, Thomas (musicians) Drapers 16 Oct 1616 26 Mar 1628 (s)Jeffes, Anthony (actor) Brewers 14 Apr 1605 (r)Jeffrey, Thomas (boy?) Goldsmiths 15 Apr 1614 (Lowin)Jones, James (boy/actor) Goldsmiths 15 Jul 1608 (Armin)

Drapers 10 Jul 1611 (Perry)Jonson, Ben (playwright) Bricklayers Michaelmas 1594Kendall, Thomas (boy leader) Haberdashers 1587 (s)Keysar, Robert (boy leader) Goldsmiths Michaelmas 1591 9 Oct 1598 (s)King, Richard (boy?) Fishmongers 8 Dec 1623 (Drew)Kynaston, Edward (boy) Drapers 5 Jul 1654 (Rhodes)Levasher, John (musician) Drapers 19 Feb 1623 10 Mar 1630 (s)Lowin, John (actor) Goldsmiths Christmas 1593 1601–2 (s)Maller, George (actor) Merch. Taylors before 1530Mannery, Samuel (boy) Farriers 1 Aug 1629 (Goodwin)Martin, Charles (boy) Drapers 20 Nov 1611 (Perry)Munday, Anthony (writer) Stationers 1 Oct 1576

Drapers 21 Jun 1585 (p)Nash, John (boy?) Drapers 2 Aug 1658 (Rhodes)Newton, John (actor) Haberdashers 23 Jul 1604 1611 (s)Packwood, Thomas (boy?) Drapers 12 Apr 1665 (Rhodes)Pallant, Robert (boy) Grocers 9 Feb 1620 (Heminges)Patricke, William (boy?) Grocers 10 Dec 1628 (Heminges)Peirson, Thomas (boy?) Drapers 29 Aug 1610 (Perry)Perry, William (actor) Drapers 16 Jul 1604 (s)Pusey, Hugh (boy?) Goldsmiths 22 Jun 1627 (Cane) 18 Sep 1635 (s)Rhodes, John (sharer) Drapers 22 May 1611 16 Mar 1625 (s)Rix, John (boy?) Drapers 17 Dec 1666 (Rhodes)Rubbidge, Rowland (musician) Musicians before 1604Saunders, William (musician) Musicians before 1634Savadge, Henry (boy?) Merch. Taylors 11 Mar 1622 (Walpole)Savill, Arthur (boy) Goldsmiths 5 Aug 1631 (Cane) 19 Jul 1639 (s)Shank, John (actor) Weavers before 1600Sharpe, Richard (boy/actor) Grocers 21 Feb 1616 (Heminges)Slater, Martin (actor) Ironmongers 17 Jan 1581 late 1587 (s)Stayne, Thomas (boy?) Goldsmiths 20 Jul 1621 (Cane)Tarlton, Richard (actor) Haberdashers before 1569 29 Sep 1576 (s)

Vintners 4 Oct 1584 (r)Totnell, Henry (actor) Barber-Surgeons20 Jan 1562 (s)

Trigge, William (boy/actor) Grocers 20 Dec 1625 (Heminges) 11 Jul 1632 (p)Tunstall, James (actor) Saddlers before 1599 (p?)Underhill, Nicholas (musician) Drapers 13 Oct 1620 (Beeland) 22 Feb 1632 (s)


Name Company Bound (master) Freed (method)Vernon, George (boy/actor) Goldsmiths 9 May 1617 (Lowin)Walley, William (boy) Apothecaries 11 May 1629 (Bugge)Walpole, Francis (actor) Merch. Taylors 23 Apr 1599 30 Jun 1606 (s)Webster, John (playwright) Merch. Taylors 19 Jun 1615 (p)Williams, Christopher (boy) Drapers 10 Dec 1656 (Rhodes)Wilson, John (boy/actor) Grocers 18 Feb 1611 (Heminges) 29 Oct 1621 (s)Woodford, Thomas (invest.) Grocers 20 Jun 1598 (p)Worth, Ellis (actor) Merch. Taylors 30 Jan 1639 (p)Wright, John (boy/actor) Goldsmiths 27 Nov 1629 (Cane) 13 Mar 1646 (s)Young, John (actor) Mercers 1534 (s)


David Kathman, Grocers, Goldsmiths, And Drapers

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