" Lawrence Fletcher, comedian to his Majesty," was undoubtedly an Englishman; and "the King's servants presently in this borough who play comedies and stage-plays" were as certainly English players. There are not many facts known by which we can trace the history of Lawrence Fletcher. He is not mentioned amongst "the names of the principal actors in all these plays," which list is given in the first folio edition of Shakspere; but he undoubtedly belonged to Shakspere's company. Augustine Phillipps, who, by his will, in 1605, bequeathed a thirty-shilling piece of gold to his "fellow" William Shakspere, also bequeathed twenty shillings to his "fellow" Lawrence Fletcher. But there is more direct evidence than this of the connection of Fletcher with Shakspere's company. The patent of James I., dated at Westminster on the nineteenth of May, 1603, in favour of the players acting at the Globe, is headed "Pro Laurentio Fletcher et Willielmo Shakespeare & aliis;" and it licenses and authorises the performances of "Laurence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillippes, John Hemings, Henrie Condel, William Sly, Robert Armin, Richard Cowly, and the rest of their associates." The connection in 1603 of Fletcher and Shakspere cannot be more distinctly established than by this document. Chalmers says that Fletcher "was placed before Shakspeare and Richard Burbage in King James's licence as much perhaps by accident as by design." The Aberdeen Register is evidence against this opinion. Lawrence Fletcher, comedian to his Majesty, is admitted to honours which are not bestowed upon the other King's servants who had acted plays in the borough of Aberdeen in 1601. Lawrence Fletcher is first named in the letters patent of 1603. It is evident, we think, that he was admitted a burgess of Aberdeen as the head of the company, and that he was placed first in the royal licence for the same reason. But there is a circumstance, we apprehend, set forth in the Aberdeen Registers which is not only important with reference to the question of Shakspere having visited Scotland, but which explains a remarkable event in the history of the stage. The company rewarded by the Corporation of Aberdeen on the 9th of October, 1601, were not only recommended by his Majesty's special letter, but they were the King's servants. Lawrence Fletcher, according to the second entry, was COmedian to his Majesty. This English company, then, had received an honour from the Scottish King, which had not been bestowed upon them by the English Queen. They were popularly termed the Queen's players about 1590; but, subsequently, we find them invariably mentioned in the official entries as the Lord Chamberlain's servants. As the servants of the first officer of the Court, they had probably higher privileges than the servants of other noblemen; but they were not formally recognised as the Queen's servants during the remainder of Elizabeth's reign. In Gilbert Dugdale's The Time Triumphant; declaring in briefe the arival of our Soveraigne Leidge Lord King James into England,' printed in 1604, the author, after noticing that the King "dealt honours as freely to our nations as their hearts could wish," adds, "not only to the indifferent of worth and the worthy of honour did he freely 'Apology,' p. 422. deal about these causes; but to the mean gave grace: as taking to him the late Lord Chamberlain's servants, now the King's actors; the Queen taking to her the Earl of Worcester's servants, that are now her actors; the Prince their son, Henry Prince of Wales, full of hope, took to him the Earl of Nottingham his servants, who are now his actors; so that of Lords' servants they are now the servants of the King, the Queen, and Prince." Mr. Collier, in noticing the licence Pro Laurentio Fletcher et Willielmo Shakespeare et aliis,' says that the Lord Chamberlain's company "by virtue of this instrument, in which they are termed our servants,' became the King's players, and were so afterwards constantly distinguished.' But the instrument did. instrument did not create Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakspere, and others, the King's servants; it recognises them as the King's servants already appointed : † Know you that we, of our special grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, have licensed and authorised, and by these presents do license and authorise, these our servants," &c. They are licensed to use and exercise their art and faculty "as well for the recreation of our loving subjects as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall think good to see them.” They are "to show and exercise publicly to their best commodity when the infection of the plague shall decrease, within their now usual house called the Globe," as in all other places. The justices, mayors, sheriffs, and others to whom the letters patent are addressed, are called upon to aid and assist them, and to do them courtesies; and the instrument thus concludes: And also what further favour you shall show to these our servants for our sake we shall take kindly at your hands." The terms of this patent exhibit towards the players of the Globe a favour and countenance, almost an affectionate solicitude for their welfare, which is scarcely reconcilable with a belief that they first became the King's players by virtue of this instrument. James arrived in London, at the Charter House, on the 7th of May, 1603. He then removed to the Tower, and subsequently to Greenwich on the 13th. The Privy Seal, directing the letters patent to Fletcher, Shakspere, and others, is dated from Greenwich on the 17th of May; and in that document the exact words of the patent are prescribed. The words of the Privy Seal and of the patent undoubtedly imply some previous appointment of the persons therein named as the King's servants. It appears scarcely possible that during the three days which elapsed between James taking up his residence at Greenwich, and the day on which the Privy Seal is issued, the Lord Chamberlain's servants, at the season of the plague, should have performed before the King, and have so satisfied him that he constituted them his own servants. It would at first seem improbable that amidst the press of business consequent upon the accession, the attention of the King should have been directed to the subject of players at all, especially in the selection of a company as his own servants, contrary to the precedent of the former reign. If these players had been the servants of Elizabeth, their appointment as the servants of James might have been asked as a matter of course; but certain players were at once to be placed 'Annals of the Stage,' vol. i., p. 348. + The proper place for this document will be in a subsequent chapter. above all their professional brethren, by the King's own act, carried into effect within ten days after his arrival within his new metropolis. But all these objections are removed when we refer to the facts opened to us by the council registers of Aberdeen. King James the Sixth of Scotland had recommended his servants to the magistrates of Aberdeen; and Lawrence Fletcher, there can be no doubt, was one of those servants so recommended. The patent of James the First of England directed to Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakspere, and others, eighteen months after the performances at Aberdeen, is directed to those persons as "our servants." It does not appoint them the King's servants, but recognises the appointment as already existing. Can there be a reasonable doubt that the appointment was originally made by the King in Scotland, and subsisted when the same King ascended the English throne? Lawrence Fletcher was admitted a burgess of Guild of the borough of Aberdeen as comedian to his Majesty, in company with other persons who were servitors to his Majesty. He received that honour, we may conclude, as the head of the company, also the King's servants. We know not how he attained this distinction amongst his fellows, but it is impossible to imagine that accident so favoured him in two instances. The King's servant who was most favoured at Aberdeen and the King's servant who is first in the patent in 1603, was surely placed in that position by the voice of his fellows, the other King's servants. William Shakspere is named with him in a marked manner in the heading of the patent. Seven of their fellows are also named, as distinguished from "the rest of their associates." There can be no doubt of the identity of the Law. rence Fletcher, the servant of James VI. of Scotland, and the Lawrence Fletcher, the servant of James I. of England. Can we doubt that the King's servants who played comedies and stage plays in Aberdeen, in 1601, were, taken as a company, the King's servants who were licensed to exercise the art and faculty of playing, throughout all the realm, in 1603? If these points are evident, what reason have we to doubt that William Shakspere, the second named in the licence of 1603, was amongst the King's servants at Aberdeen in 1601 ? Every circumstance concurs in the likelihood that he was of that number recommended by the King's special letter; and his position in the licence, even before Burbage, was, we may well believe, a compliment to him who in 1601 had taught "our James" something of the power and riches of the English drama. The circumstances which we have thus detailed give us, we think, warranty to conclude that the story of Macbeth might have been suggested to Shakspere upon Scottish ground; that the accuracy displayed in the local descriptions and allusions might have been derived from a rapid personal observation; that some of the peculiarities of his witchcraft imagery might have been found in Scottish superstitions, and more especially in those which we have shown may have been rife at Aberdeen at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Is there anything whatever to contradict the inferences which are justly to be deduced from the records which we have described and commented upon? It cannot be denied, we apprehend, that Shakspere's company was at Aberdeen in the autumn of 1601. There is nothing that we have found which can be opposed to the fair and natural inferences that belong to the registers of the Town Council. The records of the Presbytery of Aberdeen are wholly silent upon the subject of this visit of a company of players to their city. These records, on the 25th of September, 1601, contain an entry regarding Lord Glamis an entry respecting one of the many deeds of violence for which Scotland was remarkable, when the strong hand so constantly attempted to defy the law: Mr. Patrick Johnson, it seems, had been killed by Lord Glamis, and the fact is here brought under the cognizance of the Presbytery. An entry of the 9th of October deals with Alexander Ceath [Keith], on a charge of adultery. Another of the 23rd of October relates to John Innis. Beyond the 5th of November, when there is another record, it would be unnecessary to seek for any minute regarding the players who were rewarded and honoured by the Town Council. There is no entry whatever on the subject.* If Shakspere's company were at Aberdeen -and to disprove it, it must be shown that Lawrence Fletcher, who was the King of Scotland's comedian in 1601, was not the Lawrence Fletcher who was associated with Shakspere in the patent granted by James upon his accession * We consulted these documents, which are preserved in the fine library of the Advocates at Edinburgh. We were assisted by very kind friends-William Spalding, Esq., Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Edinburgh (who very early distinguished himself as a critic on Shakspere), and John Hill Burton, Esq. (who possesses the most complete knowledge of the treasures of that valuable library)-in searching for documents that could illustrate this question. in 1603-what possible reason can there be for supposing that Shakspere was absent from his company upon so interesting an occasion as a visit to the Scottish King and Court? The extraordinary merits of the dramas of Shakspere might have been familiar to the King through books. Previous to 1601, there have been nine undoubted plays of Shakspere's published, which might readily have reached Scotland.* Essex and Southampton were in the habit of correspondence with James; and at the very hour when James officially knew of his accession to the crown of England, he dispatched an order from Holyrood House to the Council of State for the release of Southampton from the Tower. It is not likely that the Lord Chamberlain's servants would have taken the long journey to Scotland upon the mere chance of being acceptable to the Court. If they were desired to come, it is not probable that Shakspere would have been absent. It was probably his usual season of repose from his professional pursuits in London. The last duties to his father's memory might have been performed on the 8th of September, leaving abundant time to reach the Court, whether at Holyrood, or Stirling, or Linlithgow, or Falkland; to be enrolled amongst the servants who performed before the King; and subsequently to have been amongst those his fellows who received rewards on the 9th of October for their comedies and stage-plays at Aberdeen. In the summer of 1618 Ben Jonson undertook the extraordinary task of travelling to Edinburgh on foot. Bacon said to him with reference to his project, "He loved not to see poesy go on other feet than poetical Dactylus and Spondæus." Jonson seems to have been proud of his exploit, for in his News from the New World discovered in the Moon,' a masque presented at Court in 1620, he makes a printer say, One of our greatest poets (I know not how good a one) went to Edinburgh on foot, and came back." According to Drummond he was "to write his foot pilgrimage hither, and call it a discovery." We have no traces of Jonson in this journey, except what we derive from the ⚫ Conversations with Drummond,' and the notice of honest John Taylor in his Pennilesse Pilgrimage: "I went to Leith, where I found my long-approved and assured good friend, Master Benjamin Jonson, at one Master John Stuart's house." Jonson remained long enough in Scotland to become familiar with its hospitable people and its noble scenery. He wrote a poem in which he called Edinburgh "The heart of Scotland, Britain's other eye." "He hath intention," saith Drummond, "to write a fisher or pastoral play, and set the stage of it in the Lomond Lake." After his return to London, he earnestly solicits Drummond, by letter, to send him "some things concerning the Loch of Lomond." We find nothing in Jonson's poetry that gives us an impression that he had caught any inspiration from the country of mountains and lakes. We have no internal evidence at all that he had been in Scotland. * There is a beautiful copy of the first edition of Love's Labour's Lost, 1598, amongst Drummond's books, preserved apart in the library of the University of Edinburgh. 'Conversations with Drummond.' 2 G 2 |