Queen Elizabeth's Men
Encyclopedia
Queen Elizabeth's Men was a playing company
or troupe of actors in English Renaissance theatre
. Formed in 1583 at the express command of Queen Elizabeth
, it was the dominant acting company for the rest of the 1580s, as the Admiral's Men
and the Lord Chamberlain's Men
would be in the decade that followed.
) to Edmund Tilney, then the Master of the Revels
; though Sir Francis Walsingham
, head of intelligence operations for the Elizabethan court, was the official assigned to assemble the personnel. At that time the Earl of Sussex
, who had been the court official in charge of the Lord Chamberlain's Men in its first Elizabethan incorporation, was nearing death. The Queen's Men assumed the same functional role in the Elizabethan theatrical landscape as the Lord Chamberlain's Men before and after
them did: it was the company most directly responsible for providing entertainment at court (although other companies also performed before the Queen).
The task of convening the new troupe apparently needed Walsingham's strong arm, since it was assembled by raiding the best performers from the companies existing at the time. But it also signaled a new awareness on behalf of the Queen and the privy council of the potential for combining theatrical and espionage activities, since players frequently traveled, both nationally and internationally, and could serve the crown in multiple ways, including the collection of information useful to Walsingham's spy network. Leicester's Men
, till then the leading company of the day, lost three to the new assemblage (Robert Wilson, John Laneham, and William Johnson), while Oxford's troupe lost both of its leading men, the brothers John and Laurence Dutton; Sussex's Men
were pillaged of leader John Adams and star clown Richard Tarlton
. Other prominent members of the new company were John Singer and the "inimitable" John Bentley. Tarlton quickly became the star of the Queen's Men — "for a wondrous plentiful pleasant extemporal wit, he was the wonder of his time."
It has been proposed that Elizabeth had a specific political motive behind the formation of the company. Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
were using their companies of players to compete for attention and prestige at each year's Christmas festivities at Court; Elizabeth and her councillors apparently judged the competition, and the noblemen's egos, to be getting out of hand. By culling the best players in their troupes to form her own, she slapped down ambitious aristocrats and asserted her own priority.
, The Isle of Gulls
, and others — did not occur with the Queen's Men. They may, however, have run afoul of higher authorities in 1589, shortly before their dissolution, for involving themselves too vigorously in the Martin Marprelate
episode by parodying Martin on the public stage.
The Queen's company was officially authorized to play at two locations in London, the Bel Savage Inn
on Ludgate Hill
, and the Bell Inn
in Gracechurch Street
, within the City near Bishopsgate
in the western wall. The former was a large open-air venue, but the latter may have been enclosed. With this arrangement, Queen Elizabeth's Men may have anticipated the dual summer and winter playing sites that the King's Men
achieved only a quarter-century later with the Globe
and Blackfriars Theatre
s.
for better-quality entertainment. But as John Stow
wrote of this period in his Annals (1615):
The company entertained at Court primarily in the winter, and during the summer they toured the towns of the shires; they may have reached as far as Scotland
in 1589. In London
they were initially allowed to perform only at the Bull and Bell Inns — though in later years they may have acted at James Burbage
's Theatre
too.
The number of twelve founding members is more revealing than it seems at first: Queen Elizabeth's Men was the first large company of actors in English Renaissance theatre, twice the size of its predecessors. (Sussex's Men had six members in the 1570s. When Elsinore Castle receives a troupe of touring players in Hamlet
, Act II, scene ii, their number is only "four or five." The players in Sir Thomas More
are "four men and a boy....") The size of the new company enabled it to act a new kind of play, built on a larger scale than ever before. In particular, the development of the history play, which was such a distinctive feature of the later 1580s and the 1590s, would not have been possible without a large company to handle the performances. Famous Victories of Henry V
(c. 1583), one of the earliest of this type of play, has twenty speaking parts in the first 500 lines; and the plays that were to follow, including Shakespeare's histories, are constructed on a similar scale. These were, in effect, the "Hollywood spectaculars" of their era, and represent a leap to a new level of complexity and professionalism; prior to the establishment of the Queen's Men, such plays would have been unactable. When the Queen's Men were finally supplanted at Court in the winter of 1591–92, it required an assemblage of personnel from both the Admiral's Men
and Lord Strange's Men
to fill their place.
An extreme instance of the above phenomenon may be found in the example of the Queen's Men's production of The True Tragedy of Richard III
. By one reconstruction, four actors were required to play seven roles each, and the boy actors
, unusually, also had to double roles, for the Queen's Men to fill the 68 separate roles in the play.
with Edward Alleyn
in the leads. The character of the troupe also changed around this time; they were joined by John Symons and other acrobats from Lord Strange's Men. And with this different emphasis and orientation, they appear to have lost the high regard they previously enjoyed. They played only once at Court in the 1591 Christmas season, while a combination of Admiral's and Lord Strange's Men performed six times in the same period. The disruption of the 1592–93 period, when the London theatres were closed due to bubonic plague
and the companies of actors struggled to survive, hit the Queen's company hard. When the actors re-organized themselves in 1594, primarily in the re-formed Lord Chamberlain's and Admiral's companies, Queen Elizabeth's Men were passé. John Singer completed his stage career with a decade with the Admiral's Men; the others toured the provinces and sold off their play books to London stationers.
(A nucleus of the company may have continued on for some years, under other names and with other patrons. Two of the Queen's Men, John Garland and Francis Henslowe, were later with Lennox's Men, under the patronage of Ludovic Stuart, 2nd Duke of Lennox; that company toured the countryside from 1604 to 1608.)
Playing company
In Renaissance London, playing company was the usual term for a company of actors. These companies were organized around a group of ten or so shareholders , who performed in the plays but were also responsible for management. The sharers employed "hired men" — that is, the minor actors and...
or troupe of actors in English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
. Formed in 1583 at the express command of Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
, it was the dominant acting company for the rest of the 1580s, as the Admiral's Men
Admiral's Men
The Admiral's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras...
and the Lord Chamberlain's Men
Lord Chamberlain's Men
The Lord Chamberlain's Men was a playing company for whom Shakespeare worked for most of his career. Formed at the end of a period of flux in the theatrical world of London, it had become, by 1603, one of the two leading companies of the city and was subsequently patronised by James I.It was...
would be in the decade that followed.
Foundation
Since the Queen instigated the formation of the company, its inauguration is well documented by Elizabethan standards. The order came down on 10 March 1583 (new styleOld Style and New Style dates
Old Style and New Style are used in English language historical studies either to indicate that the start of the Julian year has been adjusted to start on 1 January even though documents written at the time use a different start of year ; or to indicate that a date conforms to the Julian...
) to Edmund Tilney, then the Master of the Revels
Master of the Revels
The Master of the Revels was a position within the English, and later the British, royal household heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels" that originally had responsibilities for overseeing royal festivities, known as revels, and later also became responsible for stage censorship,...
; though Sir Francis Walsingham
Francis Walsingham
Sir Francis Walsingham was Principal Secretary to Elizabeth I of England from 1573 until 1590, and is popularly remembered as her "spymaster". Walsingham is frequently cited as one of the earliest practitioners of modern intelligence methods both for espionage and for domestic security...
, head of intelligence operations for the Elizabethan court, was the official assigned to assemble the personnel. At that time the Earl of Sussex
Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex
Thomas Radclyffe 3rd Earl of Sussex was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland during the Tudor period of English history, and a leading courtier during the reign of Elizabeth I.- Family:...
, who had been the court official in charge of the Lord Chamberlain's Men in its first Elizabethan incorporation, was nearing death. The Queen's Men assumed the same functional role in the Elizabethan theatrical landscape as the Lord Chamberlain's Men before and after
Lord Chamberlain's Men
The Lord Chamberlain's Men was a playing company for whom Shakespeare worked for most of his career. Formed at the end of a period of flux in the theatrical world of London, it had become, by 1603, one of the two leading companies of the city and was subsequently patronised by James I.It was...
them did: it was the company most directly responsible for providing entertainment at court (although other companies also performed before the Queen).
The task of convening the new troupe apparently needed Walsingham's strong arm, since it was assembled by raiding the best performers from the companies existing at the time. But it also signaled a new awareness on behalf of the Queen and the privy council of the potential for combining theatrical and espionage activities, since players frequently traveled, both nationally and internationally, and could serve the crown in multiple ways, including the collection of information useful to Walsingham's spy network. Leicester's Men
Leicester's Men
The Earl of Leicester's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in English Renaissance theatre, active mainly in the 1570s and 1580s in the reign of Elizabeth I...
, till then the leading company of the day, lost three to the new assemblage (Robert Wilson, John Laneham, and William Johnson), while Oxford's troupe lost both of its leading men, the brothers John and Laurence Dutton; Sussex's Men
Sussex's Men
The Earl of Sussex's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, most notable for their connection with the early career of William Shakespeare.-First phase:...
were pillaged of leader John Adams and star clown Richard Tarlton
Richard Tarlton
Richard Tarlton , an English actor, was the most famous clown of his era.His birthplace is unknown, but reports of over a century later give it as Condover in Shropshire, with a later move to Ilford in Essex...
. Other prominent members of the new company were John Singer and the "inimitable" John Bentley. Tarlton quickly became the star of the Queen's Men — "for a wondrous plentiful pleasant extemporal wit, he was the wonder of his time."
It has been proposed that Elizabeth had a specific political motive behind the formation of the company. Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, KG was an English nobleman and the favourite and close friend of Elizabeth I from her first year on the throne until his death...
and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, lyric poet, sportsman and patron of the arts, and is currently the most popular alternative candidate proposed for the authorship of Shakespeare's works....
were using their companies of players to compete for attention and prestige at each year's Christmas festivities at Court; Elizabeth and her councillors apparently judged the competition, and the noblemen's egos, to be getting out of hand. By culling the best players in their troupes to form her own, she slapped down ambitious aristocrats and asserted her own priority.
Status
Their genesis made Queen Elizabeth's Men unique among the acting companies of the age: "The Queen's Men were a deliberately political company in origin, and their repertory appears to have followed the path no doubt pointed out for them by Sir Francis Walsingham." In the plays they acted, "one finds no conflict or disturbance that is not settled in the interests of Tudor conservatism." The political controversies that marked later companies and plays — The Isle of DogsThe Isle of Dogs (play)
The Isle of Dogs is a play by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson which was performed in 1597. It was immediately suppressed, and no copy of it is known to exist.-The Play:...
, The Isle of Gulls
The Isle of Gulls
The Isle of Gulls is a Jacobean era stage play written by John Day, a comedy that caused a scandal upon its premiere in 1606.The play was most likely written in 1605; it was acted by the Children of the Revels at the Blackfriars Theatre in February 1606. It was published later in 1606, in a quarto...
, and others — did not occur with the Queen's Men. They may, however, have run afoul of higher authorities in 1589, shortly before their dissolution, for involving themselves too vigorously in the Martin Marprelate
Martin Marprelate
Martin Marprelate was the name used by the anonymous author or authors of the seven Marprelate tracts which circulated illegally in England in the years 1588 and 1589...
episode by parodying Martin on the public stage.
The Queen's company was officially authorized to play at two locations in London, the Bel Savage Inn
Inn-yard theatre
In the historical era of English Renaissance drama, an Inn-yard theatre or Inn-theatre was a common inn that provided a venue for the presentation of stage plays.-Beginnings:...
on Ludgate Hill
Ludgate Hill
Ludgate Hill is a hill in the City of London, near the old Ludgate, a gate to the City that was taken down, with its attached gaol, in 1780. Ludgate Hill is the site of St Paul's Cathedral, traditionally said to have been the site of a Roman temple of the goddess Diana. It is one of the three...
, and the Bell Inn
Inn-yard theatre
In the historical era of English Renaissance drama, an Inn-yard theatre or Inn-theatre was a common inn that provided a venue for the presentation of stage plays.-Beginnings:...
in Gracechurch Street
Gracechurch Street
Gracechurch Street is a street in the City of London which forms part of the A10. It is home to a number of shops, restaurants, offices and Leadenhall Market....
, within the City near Bishopsgate
Bishopsgate
Bishopsgate is a road and ward in the northeast part of the City of London, extending north from Gracechurch Street to Norton Folgate. It is named after one of the original seven gates in London Wall...
in the western wall. The former was a large open-air venue, but the latter may have been enclosed. With this arrangement, Queen Elizabeth's Men may have anticipated the dual summer and winter playing sites that the King's Men
King's Men (playing company)
The King's Men was the company of actors to which William Shakespeare belonged through most of his career. Formerly known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it became The King's Men in 1603 when King James ascended the throne and became the company's patron.The...
achieved only a quarter-century later with the Globe
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613...
and Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name of a theatre in the Blackfriars district of the City of London during the Renaissance. The theatre began as a venue for child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs; in this function, the theatre hosted some of the most innovative drama of Elizabeth and...
s.
Dominance
The creation of the company took advantage of the growing versatility and professionalism of the community of actors in this era. Elizabeth's Court had had a troupe of interlude players in previous years and decades; but they were judged unsatisfactory, and the Court depended on the companies of child actorsBoy player
Boy player is a common term for the adolescent males employed by Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for the mainstream companies and performed the female roles, as women did not perform on the English stage in this period...
for better-quality entertainment. But as John Stow
John Stow
John Stow was an English historian and antiquarian.-Early life:The son of Thomas Stow, a tallow-chandler, he was born about 1525 in London, in the parish of St Michael, Cornhill. His father's whole rent for his house and garden was only 6s. 6d. a year, and Stow in his youth fetched milk every...
wrote of this period in his Annals (1615):
- "Comedians and stage-players of former times were very poor and ignorant...but being
- now grown very skillful and exquisite actors for all matters, they were entertained into
- the service of diverse great lords: out of which there were twelve of the best chosen,
- and...were sworn the Queen's servants and were allowed wages and liveries as Grooms
- of the Chamber."
The company entertained at Court primarily in the winter, and during the summer they toured the towns of the shires; they may have reached as far as Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 1589. In London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
they were initially allowed to perform only at the Bull and Bell Inns — though in later years they may have acted at James Burbage
James Burbage
James Burbage was an English actor, theatre impresario, and theatre builder in the English Renaissance theatre. He built The Theatre, the facility famous as the first permanent dedicated theatre built in England since Roman times...
's Theatre
The Theatre
The Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Shoreditch , just outside the City of London. It was the second permanent theatre ever built in England, after the Red Lion, and the first successful one...
too.
The number of twelve founding members is more revealing than it seems at first: Queen Elizabeth's Men was the first large company of actors in English Renaissance theatre, twice the size of its predecessors. (Sussex's Men had six members in the 1570s. When Elsinore Castle receives a troupe of touring players in Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, Act II, scene ii, their number is only "four or five." The players in Sir Thomas More
Sir Thomas More (play)
Sir Thomas More is a collaborative Elizabethan play by Anthony Munday and others depicting the life and death of Thomas More. It survives only in a single manuscript, now owned by the British Library...
are "four men and a boy....") The size of the new company enabled it to act a new kind of play, built on a larger scale than ever before. In particular, the development of the history play, which was such a distinctive feature of the later 1580s and the 1590s, would not have been possible without a large company to handle the performances. Famous Victories of Henry V
Famous Victories of Henry V
An anonymous Elizabethan play, the full title of which is Famous Victories of Henry the fifth: Containing the Honourable Battel of Agin-court, generally thought to be a source for Shakespeare's Henriad, and originally published in 1600. The play is of unknown authorship, but in 1891 F. G. Fleay...
(c. 1583), one of the earliest of this type of play, has twenty speaking parts in the first 500 lines; and the plays that were to follow, including Shakespeare's histories, are constructed on a similar scale. These were, in effect, the "Hollywood spectaculars" of their era, and represent a leap to a new level of complexity and professionalism; prior to the establishment of the Queen's Men, such plays would have been unactable. When the Queen's Men were finally supplanted at Court in the winter of 1591–92, it required an assemblage of personnel from both the Admiral's Men
Admiral's Men
The Admiral's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras...
and Lord Strange's Men
Lord Strange's Men
Lord Strange's Men was an Elizabethan playing company, comprising retainers of the household of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange . They are best known in their final phase of activity in the late 1580s and early 1590s...
to fill their place.
An extreme instance of the above phenomenon may be found in the example of the Queen's Men's production of The True Tragedy of Richard III
The True Tragedy of Richard III
The True Tragedy of Richard III is an anonymous Elizabethan history play on the subject of Richard III of England. It has attracted the attention of scholars of English Renaissance drama principally for the question of its relationship with Shakespeare's Richard III.The True Tragedy of Richard III...
. By one reconstruction, four actors were required to play seven roles each, and the boy actors
Boy player
Boy player is a common term for the adolescent males employed by Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for the mainstream companies and performed the female roles, as women did not perform on the English stage in this period...
, unusually, also had to double roles, for the Queen's Men to fill the 68 separate roles in the play.
Decline
Richard Tarlton died in 1588, at a time when Queen Elizabeth's Men were facing new competition from the Admiral's Men, who were playing the plays of Christopher MarloweChristopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...
with Edward Alleyn
Edward Alleyn
Edward Alleyn was an English actor who was a major figure of the Elizabethan theatre and founder of Dulwich College and Alleyn's School.-Early life:...
in the leads. The character of the troupe also changed around this time; they were joined by John Symons and other acrobats from Lord Strange's Men. And with this different emphasis and orientation, they appear to have lost the high regard they previously enjoyed. They played only once at Court in the 1591 Christmas season, while a combination of Admiral's and Lord Strange's Men performed six times in the same period. The disruption of the 1592–93 period, when the London theatres were closed due to bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
and the companies of actors struggled to survive, hit the Queen's company hard. When the actors re-organized themselves in 1594, primarily in the re-formed Lord Chamberlain's and Admiral's companies, Queen Elizabeth's Men were passé. John Singer completed his stage career with a decade with the Admiral's Men; the others toured the provinces and sold off their play books to London stationers.
(A nucleus of the company may have continued on for some years, under other names and with other patrons. Two of the Queen's Men, John Garland and Francis Henslowe, were later with Lennox's Men, under the patronage of Ludovic Stuart, 2nd Duke of Lennox; that company toured the countryside from 1604 to 1608.)
Plays
Because of the publication of some of their plays in the early 1590s, the repertory of Queen Elizabeth's Men is known to a limited degree. The following plays were acted by the company:- Famous Victories of Henry VFamous Victories of Henry VAn anonymous Elizabethan play, the full title of which is Famous Victories of Henry the fifth: Containing the Honourable Battel of Agin-court, generally thought to be a source for Shakespeare's Henriad, and originally published in 1600. The play is of unknown authorship, but in 1891 F. G. Fleay...
- Friar Bacon and Friar BungayFriar Bacon and Friar BungayThe Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by Robert Greene. Widely regarded as Greene's best and most significant play, it has received more critical attention than any other of Greene's dramas.-Date:The date of authorship of Friar...
(Robert GreeneRobert Greene (16th century)Robert Greene was an English author best known for a posthumous pamphlet attributed to him, Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, widely believed to contain a polemic attack on William Shakespeare. He was born in Norwich and attended Cambridge University, receiving a B.A. in 1580, and an M.A...
) - James IV (Robert Greene)
- King LeirKing LeirKing Leir is an anonymous Elizabethan play about the life of the ancient Celtic king Leir of Britain. It was published in 1605 but was entered into the Stationers' Register on 15 May 1594...
- A Looking Glass for London and England (Robert Greene and Thomas LodgeThomas LodgeThomas Lodge was an English dramatist and writer of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.-Early life and education:...
) - The Old Wives' Tale (George PeeleGeorge PeeleGeorge Peele , was an English dramatist.-Life:Peele was christened on 25 July 1556. His father, who appears to have belonged to a Devonshire family, was clerk of Christ's Hospital, and wrote two treatises on bookkeeping...
) - Sir Clyomon and Sir ClamydesSir Clyomon and Sir ClamydesThe History of the Two Valiant Knights, Sir Clyomon Knight of the Golden Shield, Son to the King of Denmark, and Clamydes the White Knight, Son to the King of Swabia is an early Elizabethan stage play, first published in 1599 but written perhaps three decades earlier...
- The Troublesome Reign of King JohnThe Troublesome Reign of King JohnThe Troublesome Reign of King John is an Elizabethan history play, generally accepted by scholars as the source and model that William Shakespeare employed for his own King John ....
- The True Tragedy of Richard IIIThe True Tragedy of Richard IIIThe True Tragedy of Richard III is an anonymous Elizabethan history play on the subject of Richard III of England. It has attracted the attention of scholars of English Renaissance drama principally for the question of its relationship with Shakespeare's Richard III.The True Tragedy of Richard III...