Leicester's Men - Beginnings

Beginnings

Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester had kept players as early as 1559; they can be traced through the 1560s and into the 1570s by the records of their performances in various English cities as they toured the country. When the Elizabethan Poor Laws were amended by the Act of 1572, the status of travelling players was effected: those who did not possess sponsorship from a nobleman could be classed as vagabonds and subjected to a range of penalties. Conversely, however, those who enjoyed such sponsorship were legally more secure than they had previously been. A surviving letter to Leicester from his actors, dated January 3, 1572 and written by James Burbage for the company, requests that the actors be appointed not merely the Earl's liveried retainers but also his "household servants"—a distinction that enabled them to come and go in London without restriction. The letter also specifies that the actors would not expect any direct financial support, "any further stipend or benefit," from the Earl; they wanted to enjoy his legal protection while operating as an independent commercial entity, a model that subsequent companies would follow.

The 1572 letter was signed by Burbage, John Perkin, John Laneham, William Johnson, Robert Wilson, and Thomas Clarke. The first five men are also listed on the royal patent of May 10, 1574, the first royal patent granted to any company of players after the Act of 1572. The Queen's warrant authorized the company "to use, exercise, and occupy the art and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, interludes, stage plays and other such like...as well within our city of London and liberties of the same, as also within the liberties and freedoms of any our cities, towns, boroughs etc. whatsoever...throughout our Realm of England."

The warrant granted to Leicester's Men had one other crucial aspect: it cancelled earlier policies that allowed local officials to censure or disallow plays. Under the new policy, this power was vested only in the royal bureaucracy, through the Lord Chamberlain and his Master of the Revels. Once the players had the Master's approval for their plays, they could act them anywhere in England without local censorship. The warrant in effect gave the company, and those that would follow later, the freedom to create English Renaissance drama.