King's Men (playing company)
The King's Men stepped into ceremonial red on the 15th of March 1604. Nine actors were each given four and a half yards of scarlet cloth to march in King James I's coronation procession. They were not merely performers dressed for the occasion. They had become Grooms of the Chamber, formal members of the royal household. William Shakespeare walked among them.
James I had taken the company under his personal patronage in 1603, transforming them from the Lord Chamberlain's Men to the King's Men. What followed was nearly four decades of theatrical dominance in England. They outlasted plagues that emptied the city for months at a time. They survived a catastrophic fire that destroyed their main theatre. They kept performing through the deaths of their greatest members. The same company that performed for James I would still be fighting for survival when his son Charles I went to war with his own Parliament.
The royal patent of the 19th of May 1603 listed nine players by name, in a specific order. Lawrence Fletcher led the list, followed by Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillips, John Heminges, Henry Condell, William Sly, Robert Armin, and Richard Cowley. The patent referred to all others simply as the rest of their associates.
Under King James the company's workload at Court was roughly twice what it had been under Elizabeth I. In their first full winter season, from December 1603 through February 1604, they performed eight times at Court. Their second winter brought eleven Court performances, including seven plays by Shakespeare and two by Ben Jonson. To keep pace with that demand, the company increased the number of sharers from eight or nine to as many as twelve by 1604. New sharers included John Lowin, Alexander Cooke, and Nicholas Tooley.
Each Court performance earned the company ten pounds. When plague closed the theatres, the Crown made special payments to the King's Men. Other companies had no equivalent financial cushion during those enforced closures.
May 1605 brought the death of Augustine Phillips. In his will, Phillips left legacies to Shakespeare, Burbage, and eight other company members. He also left five pounds to the hired men, bequests to two apprentices, and a separate legacy to Christopher Beeston, described as a former servant. The document reveals how tightly knit the company's social world was. John Heminges, who normally received payments for Court performances, had been managing the company's finances as far back as 1595 and continued to do so long after he left the stage.
In August 1608, the Blackfriars Theatre was reorganised into a formal partnership. Five of the seven shares went to King's Men members: Shakespeare, Burbage, Heminges, Condell, and Sly. Sly died shortly after the arrangement was made, and his share was divided among the six remaining partners. The two non-actor partners were Cuthbert Burbage, Richard's brother, and Thomas Evans, agent for the theatre manager Henry Evans.
The Blackfriars hall measured roughly 66 by 46 feet, including the stage. Its maximum capacity was likely in the hundreds. The Globe Theatre, by comparison, could hold between 2,500 and 3,000 spectators. Yet Blackfriars tickets cost five to six times more than Globe tickets. Globe admission ranged from a penny to sixpence; Blackfriars admission ranged from sixpence to two shillings and sixpence. The cheapest Blackfriars ticket equalled the most expensive Globe ticket. The most expensive Blackfriars seat cost five times its Globe equivalent.
The Blackfriars was an enclosed hall, unlike the open-air Globe. It could be used year-round rather than only in clement weather. Adding the indoor theatre to the company's operations should have at least doubled their income from public performances. Their accumulated wealth from the arrangement would later shape how they handled both opportunity and disaster.
The Blackfriars sat in one of London's more fashionable neighbourhoods, and its wealthy residents never welcomed the theatre. Traffic congestion near the local churches was a persistent grievance. By the spring of 1619, the opposition had grown loud enough that the company sought a formal renewal of their royal patent, dated the 27th of March 1619. That patent named twelve current shareholders, including the veterans Burbage, Lowin, Heminges, and Condell, alongside newer members Nathan Field, Robert Benfield, and John Shank. By 1631, when officials investigated the possibility of buying out the Blackfriars property, the company valued their entire investment in the theatre at £21,990.
On the 29th of June 1613, squibs discharged during a performance of the Shakespeare and Fletcher play Henry VIII set the Globe's thatch roof alight. The building burned down. By the following spring the company had rebuilt it, replacing the vulnerable thatch with tile. The cost of reconstruction was £1,400.
The King's Men did not lose their playscripts or costumes in the fire. Their ownership of the Blackfriars meant those materials were held safely elsewhere. For the Admiral's/Palsgrave's Men, the Fortune Theatre fire of December 1621 was a different story. That company lost everything in the blaze. For them, that fire was the beginning of the end.
From July to December 1608, the theatres were closed due to plague. The King's Men toured the countryside; they were in Coventry in late October of that year. In August 1610, the company performed in Oxford, where the Oxford Municipal Authorities paid them directly. Henry Jackson, a student at Corpus Christi College, wrote a letter in Latin in September 1610 describing what he witnessed. His account mentions Ben Jonson's The Alchemist and Desdemona's role in Othello. Both productions had been performed in London earlier that year. The record of Jackson's letter is held at Corpus Christi.
On the 23rd of April 1616, Shakespeare died. His place as the company's leading playwright was filled first by John Fletcher and later by Philip Massinger, who assumed a prominent role in the 1630s. Nathan Field, who had joined the company in 1616, was already a prominent actor and wrote plays for the King's Men as well. Field died in 1620 at the age of 33, a loss that cut short what might have become a significant playwriting career. His place as sharer was taken by John Rice.
Fletcher's work with Massinger continued to dominate the repertory through the early 1620s. The Fletcher/Massinger collaboration The Sea Voyage was licensed by the Master of the Revels on the 22nd of June 1622. On Saint Stephen's Day, the 26th of December 1622, the company performed another Fletcher/Massinger play, The Spanish Curate, at Court.
In 1624, the King's Men produced Middleton's A Game at Chess. The play ran for nine consecutive days, from the 6th through the 16th of August, Sundays excepted. No prior English production had run so long without interruption. The company was prosecuted and fined by the Privy Council for the trouble the play caused. In December 1624, they earned further censure by performing Massinger's The Spanish Viceroy without a proper license from the Master of the Revels.
The company's dealings with Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, grew contentious in October 1633. On the 19th of October, Herbert banned a performance of Fletcher's The Woman's Prize, citing its foul and offensive content. Two days later, Herbert addressed a letter to the company's prompter, Edward Knight, concerning oaths, profaneness, and public ribaldry in their plays. On the 24th of October, the actors John Lowin and Eliard Swanston appeared before Herbert and offered their apologies. From that point on, the King's Men were required to submit their old play texts to Herbert for review before staging them anew. The requirement had not previously applied, and it carried additional fees. From a peak of fifteen sharers in 1625, the company's rolls had fallen to nine by 1636.
On the 2nd of September 1642, Parliament ordered all London theatres to close. The Puritans who had gained control of the city viewed the stage as incompatible with a nation at war. The theatres remained officially shut until the Restoration in 1660.
In 1646, the King's Men received back-pay from Parliament, money still owed for performances given before the closure. In 1647, there was a period of relative leniency; performances were not uncommon that year. Ten actors signed the dedication of the 1647 Beaumont and Fletcher folio as King's Men: Robert Benfield, Theophilus Bird, Hugh Clark, Stephen Hammerton, John Lowin, Thomas Pollard, Richard Robinson, Joseph Taylor, Eliard Swanston, and William Allen. Seven of those ten signed a formal contract on the 28th of January 1648, indicating the company was attempting to re-activate. That effort collapsed in July 1648 when the company failed to make a required payment.
Sixteen actors signed a contract on the 27th of December 1648 with Walter Conway, an upholsterer who served as their financier. Two of the sixteen, Walter Clun and Charles Hart, had performed with the company as boys before the 1642 closure. That second attempt also failed; it was still producing litigation as late as 1661.
In February 1648 and again in January 1649, King's Men players were arrested in the middle of performances. Eliard Swanston left the stage to become a jeweller. Alexander Gough and Andrew Pennycuicke became stationers.
When the theatres formally reopened in 1660, most of what had defined the King's Men was gone. Female roles, previously played by boy actors, were now performed by women. The open-air playhouses had given way to enclosed indoor theatres. A new King's Company was established, but it shared little with its predecessor other than a royal patron. Charles Hart and Walter Clun made the transition to the new company; most of the old guard did not. The Restoration drama that followed was shaped by French theatrical practice and the court of Louis XIV. What survived of the older tradition lived on mainly in Restoration comedy, which preserved the Elizabethan taste for large casts, multiple scenes, and mixed genres.
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Common questions
What was the King's Men playing company?
The King's Men was an English acting company active in the 17th century, formerly known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. King James I became their patron in 1603, granting them a royal patent and lending his name to the company. William Shakespeare belonged to the company for most of his career.
When did the King's Men receive their royal patent?
The King's Men received their royal patent on the 19th of May 1603, shortly after James I became king. The patent listed nine principal players by name, beginning with Lawrence Fletcher and including William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage, all of whom became Grooms of the Chamber as a result.
Who were the original members named in the King's Men 1603 royal patent?
The 1603 patent named Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillips, John Heminges, Henry Condell, William Sly, Robert Armin, and Richard Cowley. All nine became Grooms of the Chamber and were each given four and a half yards of red cloth for King James I's coronation procession in 1604.
Why was the Blackfriars Theatre important to the King's Men?
The Blackfriars gave the King's Men an enclosed indoor venue allowing year-round performances, unlike the open-air Globe. Ticket prices at the Blackfriars ranged from sixpence to two shillings and sixpence, five to six times higher than at the Globe. The company acquired five of the seven Blackfriars shares in August 1608.
What caused the Globe Theatre fire in 1613 and how did the King's Men respond?
Squibs discharged during a performance of Henry VIII on the 29th of June 1613 set fire to the Globe Theatre's thatch roof, destroying the building. The King's Men rebuilt the Globe by the following spring at a cost of £1,400, replacing the thatch with tile. Because they also held the Blackfriars Theatre, they did not lose their playscripts or costumes in the fire.
When and why did the King's Men stop performing?
Parliament ordered all London theatres to close on the 2nd of September 1642, at the start of the English Civil War. Two separate attempts to revive the company in 1648 both failed, the second still producing litigation as late as 1661. When the theatres reopened at the Restoration in 1660, a new King's Company was formed with little direct continuity from the original.