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John Lowin: Actor-Manager of the King's Company, 1630–1642

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

Rick Bowers
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of English at the University of Alberta

Extract

The most prominent names associated with the King's Company in the first half of the seventeenth century include Shakespeare, Burbage, Heminges and Condell. Yet John Lowin, one of the “Principall Actors” listed in the Heminges and Condell First Folio of Shakespeare and a leading performer for over half a century, rarely rates more than a mention. According to theatre historian G.E. Bentley, Lowin “was, of course, one of the most important Jacobean and Caroline actors”; and it is the use of the phrase “of course,” that apology for stating the obvious, along with a scarcity of biographical fact that combine to obscure Lowin's reputation so tantalizingly.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1987

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References

NOTES

1 Bentley, G.E., “Records of Players in the Parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate,” PMLA, 44 (1929), 812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Other important sources (often cited parenthetically in the text) include: Collier, J. Payne, Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare (London: Shakespeare Society 32, 1846), pp. 165–79Google Scholar; Chambers, E.K., The Elizabethan Stage, 4 vols. (1923; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon, 1951), 11, 328–29Google Scholar; Nungezer, Edwin, A Dictionary of Actors and of other Persons Associated with the Public Representation of Plays in England before 1642 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929), pp. 238–42Google Scholar; and Bentley, G.E., The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 7 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1941–68), 11, 499506.Google Scholar

2 Bentley, PMLA, 44, 812.

3 I would like to thank the librarians of Goldsmiths' Hall, Foster Lane, London for allowing me to consult their books. The entry has been transcribed by The Malone Society, Collections III: A Calendar of Dramatic Records in the Books of the Livery Companies of London, ed. Robertson, Jean and Gordon, D.J. (Oxford: Malone Society, 1954), p. 167.Google Scholar See also Denkinger, Emma Marshall, “Actors' Names in the Registers of St. Botolph Aldgate,” PMLA, 41 (1926), 97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 See Jocelyn Dunlop, O., English Apprenticeship and Child Labour (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912), pp. 45Google Scholar, 66; also Sir Walter Prideaux, Sherburne, Memorials of the Goldsmiths’ Company (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1896).Google Scholar

5 See Malone Society Collections III, p. 81. Here and throughout, I have expanded archaic contractions and silently modernized the more recondite spellings. The pageant, written by Anthony Munday, was entitled Chruso-Thriambos, The Triumphes of Golde (London, 1611).

6 Prideaux, pp. xxv-xxvi.

7 A letter by Samuel Cox, secretary of Sir Hatton, Christopher, in the Hallon Letter Book (British Library Additional MS. 15,891Google Scholar) seems addressed to someone named Lewin who entertains a comparatively liberal and perhaps firsthand understanding of the theatre. The letter, dated January 15, 1590, is in response to one delivered by the correspondent's brother, a “Mr. Lewin.” “Lewin” is a clear variant of the actor's own name, but whether or not John Lowin was related to Cox's correspondent and letter carrier is impossible to ascertain. The letter, espousing standard Puritan objections to playing and describing earlier “acceptable” theatre, is of interest in itself. It is reprinted by SirNicolas, Harris, Memoirs of the Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton (London: Richard Bentley, 1847), pp. xxix–xxxii.Google Scholar

8 See Henslowe's Diary, ed. Foakes, R.A. and Rickert, R.T. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), pp. 223–25.Google Scholar

9 Henslowe's Diary, p. 212. I have emended Henslowe's old-style dating.

10 See Ben Jonson, ed. Herford, C.H., and Percy, and Simpson, Evelyn, II vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1925–52), IX, 190.Google Scholar

11 The Patent List is printed in “Dramatic Records from the Patent Rolls. Company Licenses,” ed. Chambers, E.K. and Greg, W.W., in The Malone Society, Collections I: Part III (Oxford: Malone Society, 1909), pp. 264–65.Google Scholar See also Bentley, G.E., The Profession of Player in Shakespeare's Time 1590–1642 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 69.Google Scholar

12 See Marston, John, The Malcontent, ed. Hunter, George K., The Revels Plays (London: Methuen, 1975).Google Scholar

13 On Cooke, see Chambers, , ES, II, 312Google Scholar; Tooley's will is reprinted by Bentley, , JCS. II. 649–51Google Scholar, and his apprenticeship discussed p. 601.

14 Baldwin, T. W., The Organization and Personnel of the Shakespearean Company (1927; rpt. New York: Russell & Russell, 1961), p. 49.Google Scholar

15 Baldwin, , Organization, pp. 8889.Google Scholar

16 Beckermani, BernardShakespeare at the Globe 1599–1609 (New York: Macmillan, 1962), p. 134.Google Scholar

17 Bentley, , Profession, p. 206.Google Scholar

18 Howard, Skiles, “A Re-Examination of Baldwin's Theory of Acting Lines,” Theatre Survey, 26(1985), 120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Wright, James, Historia Histrionica: An Historical Account of the English Stage (1699; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1974), p. 4.Google Scholar

20 Baldwin dates this comment as 1729 in Organization, p. 179, n. 14. I have quoted the passage from Halliwell-Phillipps, J.O., Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 7th ed. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1887), I, 243.Google Scholar

21 Collier, , Memoirs, p. 171.Google Scholar

22 See Adams, Joseph Quincy, “The Housekeepers of the Globe,” MP, 17 (1919), 18.Google Scholar

23 Adams, , MP, 17Google Scholar, I. See also Bentley, , JCS, I, 4347.Google Scholar

24 See Bentley, G.E., “Shakespeare's Fellows,” TLS (Nov. 15, 1928), 856.Google Scholar

25 Cited by Bentley, , JCS, II, 501.Google Scholar See also Payne Collier, J., Memoirs of Edward Alleyn (London: Shakespeare Society I, 1841), pp. 153–54.Google Scholar

26 Baldwin, , Organization, pp. 178–79.Google Scholar

27 Massinger, Philip, The Roman Actor, III. II. 282–83Google Scholar, in The Plays And Poems of Philip Massinger, ed. Philip Edwards and Colin Gibson (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), III, 13–93.

28 Halliwell-Phillipps, , Outlines, I, 243.Google Scholar Manuscript evidence for Lowin's creation of Sir Politic Would-be in Volpone and Sir Epicure Mammon in The Alchemist is reported by Riddell, James A., “Some Actors in Ben Jonson's Plays,” Shakespeare Studies, V (1969), 285–98.Google Scholar

29 Downes, John, Roscius Anglicanus, ed. Montague Summers(1708; rpt. London: Fortune Press, n.d.), p. 24.Google Scholar

30 Shakespeare, William, King Henry VIII, ed. Foakes, R.A., The Arden Shakespeare (1957; rpt. London: Methuen, 1964).Google Scholar

31 Joseph, Bertram was in the vanguard of the formalist side with Elizabethan Acting (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951).Google Scholar A later book by the same author, The Tragic Actor (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959), showed evidence of healthy modification toward a less formalistic opinion. Foakes, R.A., in “The Player's Passion: Some Notes on Elizabethan Psychology and Acting,Essays and Studies, n.s. 7 (1954), 6277Google Scholar, and Armstrong, William A., “Actors and Theatres,” Shakespeare Survey, 17 (1964), 191204Google Scholar, lean toward naturalism or, at least, a modified naturalism. See also Gurr, A.J., “Who Strutted And Bellowed?”, Shakespeare Survey, 16 (1963), 95–102Google Scholar; Hattaway, Michael, Elizabethan Popular Theatre: Plays in Performance (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982)Google Scholar; as well as the caveat of Lavin, J.A., “The Elizabethan Theatre and the Inductive Method,” The Elizabethan Theatre, II (1969), 7486.Google Scholar

32 Shadwell, Thomas, The Virtuoso, in The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell, ed. Montague Summers (London: Fortune Press, 1927), III, 116.Google Scholar

33 Beckerman, pp. 154–55.

34 Translated by Klein, David, “Did Shakespeare Produce His Own Plays?”, MLR, 57 (1962), 556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 Cited by Chambers, E.K., “Elizabethan Stage Gleanings,” RES, 1 (1925), 184.Google Scholar

36 See Bentley's, Appendix, “Casts and Lists of Players,” in Profession, pp. 250–69.Google Scholar

37 The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert, ed. Adams, Joseph Quincy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1917), p. 44.Google Scholar

38 Dramatic Records, ed. Adams, p. 47.

39 Ben Jonson, ed. Herford and Simpson, XI, 348.

40 Dramatic Records, ed. Adams, p. 20.

41 Dramatic Records, ed. Adams, p. 20.

42 Dramatic Records, ed. Adams, p. 21.

43 Baldwin, , Organization, pp. 183Google Scholar, 184. In an effort to maintain his idea of acting “lines,” Baldwin himself resorts to writing fiction later: “The actor did not strive to be a fictitious person; he strove rather to be himself under fictitious circumstances” (pp. 305–6).

44 The Diary of Thomas Crosfield, ed. Frederick S. Boas (London: Oxford University Press, 1935), p. 72. See also Bentley, , JCS, II, 688–89.Google Scholar

45 The will is reprinted by Bentley, , JCS, II, 638–40.Google Scholar See also Bentley, G.E., “Players in the Parish of St. Giles in the Fields,” RES, 6 (1930), 156.Google Scholar

46 MSC, 11, 363. On the episode of the controversial “Sharers Papers,” see Bentley, , JCS, I, 43–7.Google Scholar

47 The date of this entry is 5 August 1641, and reproduced here from Bawcutt, N.W., “New Revels Documents of Sir George Buc and Sir Henry Herbert, 1619–1662,” RES, 35 (1984) 326.Google Scholar This corrects Adams' transcription in Dramatic Records, p. 65, and answers his biographical question footnoted there.

48 See the tables from John Bell's, London Remembrancer (London, 1665)Google Scholar, reproduced by Bentley, , JCS, II, 669.Google Scholar

49 Speaight, Robert, Shakespeare on the Stage: An Illustrated History of Shakespearian Performance (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1973), p. 22.Google ScholarBrown, Ivor, Shakespeare and the Actors (London: Bodley Head, 1970)Google Scholar, reproduces the portrait also (facing p. 112), but his comments (p. 98) are inadequate when not erroneous. Lowin's portrait also graces the dust jacket, of The Revels History of Drama in English IV, 1613–1660, ed. Edwards, Philip et al. (London: Methuen, 1981).Google Scholar

50 Wright, , Historia Hislrionica, pp. 78.Google Scholar

51 Butler, Martin, Theatre and Crisis 1632–1642 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 138–39.Google Scholar Primarily a reevaluation of the drama of Massinger, Shirley, and Brome, Butler's book includes compelling chapters on contemporary politics and socialization. Butler sees the theatre of the day as vigorously partisan and especially responsive to opposition, puritan feeling.

52 Cited by Hotson, Leslie, The Commonwealth and Restoration Sctage (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1928), p. 19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Hotson, p. 29. Hotson goes on to show some interesting “bracketings” of pulpit and stage during this period.

54 Bald, R.C., Bibliographical Studies in the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio of 1647 (Oxford: Bibliographical Society, 1938), p. 1.Google Scholar

55 The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E.S. de Beer (Oxford: Clarendon, 1955), II. 539.

56 Cited by Rollins, Hyder E., “A Contribution to the History of the Commonwealth Drama,” SP, 18 (1921), 291.Google Scholar

57 Hotson, pp. 40–41.

58 Wright, , Historia Histrionica, pp. 89Google Scholar; see also Bentley, , JCS. I, 109.Google Scholar

59 Hotson, p. 43. Hotson reprints the petition, pp. 43–44.

60 Wright, , Historia Histrionica, p. 9.Google Scholar Hotson, pp. 23–24, suggests that this describes activity of 1647, but its strictly covert nature must surely place it after Charles' execution, and “in Oliver's time.”

61 Wright, , Historia Histrionica. p. 10.Google Scholar

62 See Jonson, Ben, The Alchemist, ed. Mares, F.H., The Revels Plays (London: Methuen, 1967), V. iv. 89.Google Scholar According to Robbins, Michael, Middlesex, New Survey of England Series (London: Collins, 1953)Google Scholar, the Three Pigeons was “an ancient house existing until 1848”(p. 225). On the reputation of the place, along with further mention of Lowin (citing an incorrect date for his death), see A History of Middlesex, ed. Baker, T.F.T., The Victorian History of the Counties of England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), VII, 120.Google Scholar

63 Beaumont, Francis and Fletcher, John, The Wild-Coose Chase (London, 1652), A2r.Google Scholar

64 The Probate Act Book of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury which, during the Commonwealth “had sole testamentary jurisdiction overall England,” (see Camp, Anthony J.. Wills and Their Whereabouts [Canterbury: Phillimore & Co., 1963], p. 42Google Scholar) notes that the year 1653 (the year of Lowin's death) is missing from the series of Act Books. Lowin does not appear in the Official Calendar for 1653 in any case. As well. Administration Prob. 6/28 for London and Middlesex has a gap in entries from March 1653 to April 1654. I have searched both registers in the Public Record Office, London.

65 Bentley, , PMLA, 44, 812.Google Scholar This corrects the erroneous 1659 date cited in the DNB. and still adhered to by many reporters.