Controversies
The Lord Chamberlain's Men, and its individual members, largely avoided the scandals and turbulence in which other companies and actors sometimes involved themselves. Their most serious difficulty with the government came about as a result of their tangental involvement in the February 1601 insurrection of the Earl of Essex. Some of Essex's supporters had commissioned a special performance of Shakespeare's Richard II in the hope that the spectacle of that king's overthrow might make the public more amenable to the overthrow of Elizabeth (who later remarked, "I am Richard II, know ye not that?"). Augustine Phillips was deposed on the matter by the investigating authorities; he testified that the actors had been offered 40 shillings more than their usual fee, and for that reason alone had performed the play on 7 February, the day before Essex's uprising. The explanation was accepted; the company and its members went unpunished, and even performed for Elizabeth at Whitehall on 24 February, the day before Essex's execution.
The following year, 1602, saw Christopher Beeston's rape charge. Probably some of the Lord Chamberlain's Men were among the actors who accompanied Beeston to his pretrial hearing at Bridewell and caused a disturbance there; but little can be said for certain.
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