Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8bljj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-28T00:51:08.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

III. Actors' Names in the Registers of St. Bodolph Aldgate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Emma Marshall Denkinger
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Last summer I undertook a systematic examination of the Registers of the London parish of St. Botolph Aldgate, in the hope that they might yield some new material in regard to the members of the Elizabethan acting companies. The Registers of this parish seemed worth the combing for several reasons. In the first place, within the limits of St. Botolph, along its western boundary, lay Houndsditch, which was tenanted by pawn-brokers and dealers in cast-off clothing, just such gentry as might attract the patronage of indigent players who were called upon to supply their own wardrobes. Houndsditch, in turn, led directly to Bishopsgate. The proximity of this district to Aldgate supplied another reason for searching the records of St. Botolph's, inasmuch as Elizabethan actors were likely to establish themselves in the neighborhood of their employment; and in and about Bishopsgate stood several playhouses: on Bishopsgate Street proper stood the Bull Inn (1575-1590); and on Gracious [Gracechurch] Street, the Bell Inn (1560-1576) and the Cross Keys (1588-1596). Or, following Bishopsgate to its northern end, one arrived within short distance at Shoreditch with its famous Theatre (1576-1599) and Curtain (1577-1634?). Nor were these neighboring playhouses the only ones which might have attracted actors to St. Botolph's. At least one theatre, the Boar's Head, existed within the confines of the Aldgate district. The exact location of this playhouse (or converted inn) is open to doubt, but whether it was within or without the Bars, the Boar's Head was clearly on Aldgate High Street and well within the parish of St. Botolph.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 41 , Issue 1: American Bibliography for 1925 , March 1926 , pp. 91 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1926

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Houndsditch was known then, as it still is today, as a place for the sale of second-hand articles, particularly clothing. Its reputation in Elizabethan times is illustrated by the following passages:

Jonson, Every Man in His Humor (1599) :

Wellbred: Where got'st thou this coat, I mar'le?

Brainworm: Of a Houndsditch man, sir, one of the devil's near Kinsmen.

Munday, The Letting of Humour's Blood in the Head-Veins (1601):

Oh Sir, whi that's as true as you are heere

With one example I will make it cleere

And far to fetch the same I will not goe

But unto Houndsditch to the Broker's Row

Lupton, London and the Country Carbonadoed (1632) :

A man that comes here as a stranger would think there had been some great death of men and women hereabouts, he sees so many suits and no men for them. They should be well affected to the Romish church for they keep and lay up old reliques.

2 Chambers, (Eliz. Stage, H, chapter on “Actors”) gives a large number of addresses which prove this point.

3 For a summary see J. Q. Adams, Shakes perean Playhouses, p. 17 and Chambers, Eliz. Stage, II, 443-445.

4 Chambers, op. cit., I, 355.

5 Ibid., II, 444.

6 Viz., John Jones, Robert Lee, William Penn, Richard Wood and Robert Wood.

7 With the musicians who lived in St. Botolph Aldgate and the neighboring parish of Trinity Minories I shall deal in a later paper.

8 In the next two centuries, the Aldgate district takes on literary and dramatic interest which have eclipsed its fame in the time of Elizabeth. It was at St. Botolph Aldgate (the old Gothic Church) that Daniel Defoe was wedded to Mary Tufflie by Mr. Hollingsworth on January 1, 1683. And at a small theatre in Great Alie Street Garrick made his debut in 1741.

9 Vide Tarlton's Jests, London, 1638 (C. 2) for “How Tarlton made Armin his adopted sonne to succeed him.”

10 Nashe, Foure Letters Confuted in Works, I, 280.

11 More likely the maker of the anthology was Robert Allott.

12 See his Foole Upon Foole or Six Sortes of Sottes (1600).

13 Chambers, op. cit., II, 300.

14 Gerard Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramaticke Poets (1691), p. 6.

15 The Works of Robert Armin, ed. Grosart, London, 1880, p. viii.

16 All the Christening and Marriage entries for 1558-1625 are found in Vol. J. of the Registers. The page references are always to Vol. J, since the Burialls over the same period are found in Vol. F, which lacks pagination.

17 Collier, Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare, London 1846, p. 201.

18 Entries regarding christenings and marriages do not constitute proof that the person concerned actually resided within a given parish. Burial entries, on the other hand, are practically evidence indubitable in this period. When the deceased was not a member of the parish, the clerk was at considerable pains to state as much. Cf. the entries concerning Anne Reade, “norse child” and daughter to John Read, q. v.

19 The Goldsmith's Company, Prentice Boohs, I, 29. In this entry the words “ye sonne off” are interlined above the line.

20 Sir Walter Prideaux (Clerk of the Company) Memorials of the Goldsmiths' Company being Gleanings From Their Records Between the Years 1335 and 1815 (London 1896).

21 Prideaux, op. cit., I, 115.

It should be borne in mind that even if John Lowin the actor was the John Lowin, apprentice to Nicholas Rudyard, he may not have taken up the freedom of the company.

23 Anthony Munday was of a different calibre. For his connection with the same pageant and the parish of St. Botolph Aldgate, see below, p. 107 ff.

24 Henslowe's Diary, ed. Greg, London, 1904, Part I, F. 232.1. 26.

25 The nurslings in Houndsditch and Eastsmithfield lived so briefly that the Parish Clerk, hardened to infant burials, remarks sub 31 October, 1623: “There are verie few children prosper long in our Parish that are Nursed in such Places.” There is no further mention of Penelope in the pages of the Registers. She may actually have survived.

26 Chambers, op. cit., II, 303.

27 Henslowe's Diary, ed. Greg, Part I, F. 113, l. 11.

28 Murray, Eng. Dram. Companies, London, 1910, I, 266.

29 C. C. Stopes, Jahrbuch, XLVI, 431.

30 Chambers, op. cit., II, 313.

31 Henslowe Papers, ed. Greg, London, 1907, p. 133.

32 Ibid., p. 152.

33 Chambers, op. cit., II, 319.

34 Tucker Brooke, Shakespeare Apocrypha, Oxford, 1908, p. 437

35 Henslowe Papers, ed. Greg, p. 130, l. 16.

36 Ibid., p. 131, l. 38.

37 Ibid., p. 131, l. 62.

38 There was a John Joanes living “in the highstrete” on 26 Dec. 1611

[J 136b)]; and another residing in Rosemary Lane on 15 Aug. 1613 [Register F].

39 Henslowe Papers, ed. Greg, p. 151.

40 Moreover, since the marriage entries at this date do not specify the husband's occupation, the absence of “player” in this record is negligible. By 1603 a Robert Lee butcher appears in the parish, too late to be confused with Robert Lee, player.

41 Henslowe Papers, ed. Greg, p. 133, l. 5, and p. 134, ll. 34-36.

42 Henslowe's Diary, ed. Greg, F. 44, l. 8.

43 Chambers, op. cit., III, 407.

44 Stopes, Jahrbuch XLVI, 93.

45 Chambers, op. cit., IV, 342.

46 Henslowe's Diary, ed. Greg, Part 2, pp. 294-295.

47 Wallace, Jahrbuch XLVI, 348.

48 Chambers (Eliz. Stage II, 242) chronicles the first appearance of the Prince's Men in the provinces in 1608. They performed in Ipswich on 20 October, and later in the year at Bath. On neither of these expeditions did Pavy accompany them since he died in September of that year. The first of their extant patents (30 March 1610) is too late to contain Pavy's name. Cf. also Murray, op. cit., I, 228-231, 239.

49 There was in the parish one Wm. Pavey, brewer, described as deceased in May 1617. He may have been a relative.

50 Henslowe Papers, ed. Greg, 144.

51 Ibid., p. 64, ll. 9-13. The italics are mine.

52 Chambers, op. cit., II, 332.

53 William Rowley, Robert Pallant, Josephe Taylor, Robert Hamlett, John Newton, Hughe Ottewell, William Backstede, Thomas Hobbes and Antony Smyth.

54 Henslowe Papers, ed. Greg, p. 91.

55 Stopes, Jahrbuch, XLVI, 95.

56 Ibid., p. 124.

57 Chambers, op. cit., II, 333-334.

58 See Note 17. The tender age of the child (she was evidently not even christened) and the fact of her father's residence in Southwark both before and after her death, makes it possible that Phillips lived in the Borough without interruption, and that the child was (somewhat irregularly) buried in the parish where she was “nursed.”

59 By Will proved 13 May, 1605.

60 Chambers, op. cit., II, 335.

61 Murray, op. cit., I, 266 n.

62 Vide Murray: op. cit., II, 347.

63 Augustine Phillips was similarly provided since on the evidence of his will he left thirty shillings to his “servant,” Christopher Beeston (Chambers, op. cit., II, 334.)

64 Entries in the Christening Register of St. Giles Cripplegate would indicate that he was resident there from 1584 to 1588 since during that period his children Elizabeth, Roase, Priscilla and Richard were baptized.

65 St. Botolph Aldgate Churchwardens' Accounts, unpaged.

66 D. N. B., Art. “Anthony Munday” (XIII, 1190).

67 Prideaux: Memorials of the Goldsmiths' Company, I, 117.

68 At all events he made the tidy sum of 80£ for writing the book and providing “apparell for the Kings in the Chariot, for Farrington, the Mayor, for Tyme and for all other persons and children in the mystery and for all those that ride on beasts” (Prideaux, op. cit., I, 118.)

69 He kept in perpetual maintenance two almes-women in the Company s almshouse on Tower Hill, he privately assisted needy merchant tailors like Stowe, and he left annual provision for sixty-four poor folk to be selected by the ecclesiastical authorities of Aldgate parish. Further he provided 20£ a year to be expended for the release of prisoners in the Compters of Ludgate, the Poultry, Giltspur Street Ward and Newgate. (Cf. Atkinson, A. G. B. The History of St. Botolph Aldgate, London 1898, p. 163.)

70 This early monument is the one listed in Fisher Payne's Catalogue of the Tombs In the Churches of the City of London, A. D. 1666; it was spared by the Fire but shared the demolition of the old Gothic church in 1741. The monument which may now be seen in the East Gallery of the modern church (designed by the elder Dance) was erected within comparatively recent times by the Merchant Tailors' Company. The three doves in the coat of arms preserve the Elizabethan pun on the name of Botolph Aldgate's great benefactor.