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  • Cited by 10
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
December 2013
Print publication year:
2013
Online ISBN:
9781107323537

Book description

Eva Griffith's book fills a major gap concerning the world of Shakespearean drama. It tells the previously untold story of the Servants of Queen Anna of Denmark, a group of players parallel to Shakespeare's King's Men, and their London playhouse, The Red Bull. Built in vibrant Clerkenwell, The Red Bull lay within the northern suburbs of Jacobean London, with prostitution to the west and the Revels Office to the east. Griffith sets the playhouse in the historical context of the Seckford and Bedingfeld families and their connections to the site. Utilising a wealth of primary evidence including maps, plans and archival texts, she analyses the court patronage of figures such as Sir Robert Sidney, Queen Anna's chamberlain, alongside the company's members, function and repertoire. Plays performed included those by Webster, Dekker and Heywood - entertainments characterised by spectacle, battle sequence and courtroom drama, alongside London humour and song.

Reviews

‘The last book about The Red Bull's plays and their staging came out more than eighty years ago. At the time, it offered a wholly fresh approach to Shakespearean playing. Studiously written by George F. Reynolds, and working from a well-documented body of evidence, freshly assessed, it became the first in a long series of studies of specific acting companies and their repertoire of plays, most of them much more recent, and all attempting to identify how the plays were meant to be staged at their original venues. Eva Griffith has written an admirable replacement for Reynolds's great work, adding masses of fresh information about the families and their interests behind the company and their playhouse, as well as clarifying many features of the company's remarkable repertoire. Her book will rightly take its place among the works that have clarified and helped to explain the activities of that uniquely fertile period in English theatre.'

Andrew Gurr - University of Reading

'With its wealth of fresh information on repertoire, players, and locale, A Jacobean Company and its Playhouse is a richly documented, timely, and elegant volume which succeeds, admirably, in its bold vision to readdress the whole question of the Queen’s Servants at the Red Bull Theatre.'

Rebecca A. Bailey Source: The Seventeenth Century

'It is a pleasure to record that this eagerly awaited volume amply fulfils expectations … Time and again, Griffith uncovers new evidence that makes us question prevailing orthodoxies in theatre history … [Her] monograph will become, rightly, the standard work on the Red Bull for many years to come, but it has much to teach anyone interested in this, the most vibrant and sophisticated period in English theatrical history.'

Richard Rowland Source: Recusant History

'Griffith's rich account of the Queen's Servants and the Red Bull transforms the company's archival presence into a clear and compelling narrative that adds significantly to an understanding not only of this particular company's history and repertoire, but also of how Jacobean theatrical companies operated more broadly. A Jacobean Company does indeed provide 'much-needed data'; but it also eloquently arranges that data into a story replete with 'the kinds of contexts that all histories of theatres deserve to have'.'

Jonathan Koch Source: The Shakespeare Newsletter

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Contents

Select bibliography

The National Archives, Kew

London Metropolitan Archives

Other manuscript sources

British Library

BL Additional MS 19256, item 8, fo. 44

‘Robert Pallant’, 1624

BL Additional MS 34563

Princess Elizabeth (Tudor) and the Bedingfeld family

Hatfield House, Cecil Papers, MS 197, fo. 91(2)

Martin Slatiar’s petition, available on BL microfilm M485/52/91(2)

Cambridge University Archives

Commissary Court Book, Comm. Ct. ii.13, fo. 128v (rev) and fo. 107v (rev)

The visit of Thomas Greene and the Queen’s Servants on tour

College of Arms

College of Arms MS I16/416

Eustace Bedingfeld’s funeral certificate

Dulwich College, London

Dulwich College MS 1

Letters and papers of Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn on English drama and the stage at the Fortune Theatre, 1559–1662

Essex Record Office, Chelmsford

St Edward the Confessor Parish Registers, Romford, D/P 346/1/1

Records of the Greens/Greenes

Gloucestershire Archives, Gloucester

Gloucestershire Archives, D1799/P12

Sketch of outside of Red Bull playhouse (c. 1664)

Gloucestershire Archives, Dyrham papers

Blathwaite family

Guildhall Library

Brewers Company, Court Minute Books: CLC/L/BF/B/001/MS 05445/007 (1582–6) and CLC/L/BF/B/001/012 (1604–12)

Henry Draper, brewer

Huntington Library, San Marino, California

  • Wallace papers, Box 2, File BI 11

  • Wallace papers, Box 3, File BI 20

  • Wallace papers, Box 9, File Bv, 11b

Islington Local History Centre, Finsbury Library, St John Street

St James’ Parish Vestry Book, 1590–1683

Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone

De L’Isle papers, CKS-U1475/A62/4

Sir Robert Sidney in debt (1607)

De L’Isle papers, CKS-U1475/C81/91–165, nos. 144–5, 144

A Thomas Greene mentioned

Lambeth Palace Library

LPL 3201, fos. 182v–183

Worcester’s letter describing Queen Anna’s ladies of the household

Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk

Wooden Box, Household Inventories

Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich

SROI FC25/L3/3/8

Anne Bedingfeild’s deposition (1633)

SROI FC25/L3/3/11

Document showing division of Thomas Seckford’s Clerkenwell Estate (cf. will)

SROI HB10/427/214

Indenture of lease with survey (1679/80)

SROI HD21/480

Sketch of Seckford Estate (seventeenth century, undated)

Surrey History Centre, Woking

Loseley MS SHC LM/348/125

Eustace Bedingfeld property (1578)

Loseley MS SHC LM/COR/3/707

A letter from Anthony Bedingfeld

Westminster City Archives

St Clement Danes Parish Records B1, Surveyor’s Accounts 1581–1621

Poor rates paid by Eustace Bedingfeld and Anne Bedingfeild

St Mary le Strand Churchwardens’ Accounts

Poor rates paid by Aaron Holland

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