Contents  The Life and Times of William Shakespeare

Arrival in London

No concrete evidence exists to tell the story of Shakespeare's life up to his arrival in London from Stratford in 1592. The years from his birth in 1564 to 1592 are documented by biographers as 'the lost years'. Much speculation is therefore in evidence about this period but we know that William did in fact arrive in the capital at the age of 28.

The story that has continued throughout the centuries revolves around Shakespeare having to leave Warwickshire as a result of poaching deer on the lands of Sir Thomas Lucy. The move was made to escape prosecution. It is further believed that Shakespeare avenged himself on this man when he wrote his play The Merry Wives of Windsor. Justice Shallow is thought to have been based on the real-life character Lucy. The story was instigated by a Gloucestershire clergyman name Richard Davies who, around the year 1616, wrote that:

"Shakespeare was much given to all unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits, particularly from Sir ----- Lucy [Davies left out Sir Thomas' first name] who oft had him whipped and sometimes imprisoned and at last mad him fly his native country to his great advancement".

In 1709 Nicholas Rowe (first editor of Shakespeare's Works after the First Folio editions and his first biographer in1709) picked up the story in his 'Acount of the Life':

"He had, by a Misfortune common enough to young Fellows, fallen into ill Company; and amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of Deer-stealing, engag'd him with them more than once in robbing a Park that belong'd to Sir Thomas Lucy of Cherlecot, near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that Gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely; and in order to revenge that ill Usage, he made a Ballad upon him. And tho' this, probably the first Essay of his Poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter, that it redoubled the Prosecution against him to that degree, that he was oblig'd to leave his Business and Family in Warwickshire, for some time, and shelter himself in London"

The Essay to which Rowe refers is not The Merry Wives of Windsor but to various Stratford ballads sung at the unpopular Sir Thomas' expense.

Other speculations made as to Shakespeare's whereabouts during this period included that of Edmond Malone, one of the great Shakespearian scholars of the eighteenth century. Impressed with Shakespeare's detailed knowledge of the law, Malone speculated that he "was employed while he yet remained at Stratford, in the office of some country attorney..." (Poems and Plays, 1790). A nineteenth century antiquary (W. J. Thoms, 1859) found a William Shakespeare as a conscript in the low countries in 1605 and, once again, being impressed with the dramatist's grasp of military minutia assumed that this must have been the William Shakespeare. Aubrey in his 'Brief Lives' of 1681 states that "...he had been in his younger yeares a Schoolmaster in the Countrey" and cites his source as William Beeston, the son of Christopher Beeston who had been one of the most important people in the London theatre in his later life. Both Beeston Snr. and William Shakespeare played together within the Lord Chamberlain's Men in the 1598 production of 'Every Man in His Humour'. This is apparently the closest we get to an authoritative account regarding Shakespeare during these years. 

Another theory by the author E A J Honigmann in his 1985 book: 'Shakespeare: "The Lost Years"' has Shakespeare located in Lancashire in the household of the powerful, Catholic Hoghton family. References to plays, play-clothes and musical instruments are made but again nothing is founded for certain.

Other less believable speculations have Shakespeare visiting Italy; holding horses outside theatres in London; working as an itinerant butcher; or becoming a copyist of documents. What is certain is that in London Shakespeare's career really seemed to take off. It is believed that he may have made his mark in London's theatrical life by 1592 and to the people that mattered most. Being interested in theatre life, Shakespeare may well have seen the Queen's Men when they performed in Stratford in the summer of 1587. Performing as part of the group was a Will Kemp (also spelt Kempe) who later became one of Shakespeare's colleagues in The Globe theatre a few years' later. Perhaps some sort of association was drawn up involving William with their work in future years. Speculation again, but quite possible.

By 1592 Shakespeare had joined one of the city's repertory theatre companies. These companies were made up of a permanent cast of actors who presented different plays week by week. The companies were commercial organisations that depended on admission from their audience. Scholars know that Shakespeare belonged to one of the most popular acting companies in London called The Lord Chamberlain's Men. Shakespeare was a leading member of the group from 1594 and for the rest of his career. By 1594, at least six of Shakespeare's plays had been produced: The Comedy of Errors, Taming of the Shrew, perhaps Two Gentlemen of Verona, the three parts of Henry VI, Titus Andronicus and perhaps even Richard III. Assigning dates to his plays is very difficult. Many individuals such as E K Chambers and John Dover Wilson have committed their working lives to dating Shakespeare's works, but at the end of the day, no one knows exact dates for sure. Only educated suppositions can be made.

Shakespeare's main literary rival was Christopher Marlowe who had by this time written the Tamburlain plays, Dr. Faustus and The Jew of Malta. Late sixteenth century England saw two of the greatest playwrights alive at the same time although Marlowe's own life was cut short when he was murdered the year after in 1593. As well as having a strong following in the theatres, Shakespeare also made enemies. One of the most famous literary outbursts ever written was made in 1592 by Robert Greene, an embittered playwright who died in poverty. In his pamphlet 'Groats-worth of Witte', published after his death, he refers to:

"... an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey."

The passage is well known as it clearly refers to William Shakespeare as "Shake-scene" and is the first documentary evidence we have of his rise to prominence in the London theatre world; indeed the first direct documentary evidence since the baptism of the twins in 1585. In Shakespeare's Henry VI Part 3 is the line "O tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide!". He appears to be attacking Greene, himself presuming to write plays. So Shakespeare was an actor who had already had at least one play performed by this time.

Greene was a minor Elizabethan playwright (Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay) and pamphleteer, six years older than Shakespeare, a university educated man (MA from both Oxford and Cambridge) and proud of it, yet known to be a wastrel. As well as attacking Shakespeare, he also made derogatory statements about other younger rivals, Marlowe, Nashe and Peele. Much has been written about the "upstart crow" passage. Its importance is that it verifies several facts about Shakespeare's career as it had developed by 1592:

The "at severall times" in this passage is significant. Elizabethan theatrical companies produced plays in repertory, several being played simultaneously, new ones being added and tried out while old, less profitable ones were dropped from the rotation. Philip Henslowe, a theatrical impresario kept a diary in which he kept many records such as theatre receipts, payments to playwrights, the cost of costumes, etc. A typical month (March 1592) shows one of Shakespeare's Henry VI plays being performed 5 times in rotation with 13 other plays. Shakespeare's play was apparently the most popular at the time (it was new to Henslowe on 3 March that year) since the next most performed play during the month was Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy (3 times - called Joronymo after its main character) and Marlowe's Jew of Malta (twice). Elizabethan acors must have had quite remarkable memories to remember all the words!

Shortly afterwards he secured the patronage of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. The publication of Shakespeare's two fashionably erotic narrative poems Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) and of his Sonnets (published 1609, but circulated previously in manuscript form) established his reputation as a gifted and popular poet of the Renaissance (14th century to 17th century). The Sonnets describe the devotion of a character, often identified as the poet himself, to a young man whose beauty and virtue he praises and to a mysterious and faithless dark lady with whom the poet is infatuated. The ensuing triangular situation, resulting from the attraction of the poet's friend to the dark lady, is treated with passionate intensity and psychological insight. Shakespeare's modern reputation however, is based primarily on the 38 plays that he apparently wrote, modified or collaborated upon. Although generally popular in his time, the plays were little esteemed by his educated contemporaries, who considered English plays of their day to be only vulgar entertainment.

During Shakespeare's life, two monarchs ruled England. They were Elizabeth I and James I (previously James VI of Scotland). Both rulers were impressed with Shakespeare which greatly assisted in making his name known. Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603 with James I following her to the throne. Shakespeare's theatrical company was taken under the king's patronage and called the King's Company. Shakespeare and the other actors were made officers of the royal household. The theatrical company was the most successful of its time. Plays by Shakespeare were also performed at the royal court and in the castles of the nobles. There were other groups that Shakespeare performed with too, notably: The Queen's Men, Pembroke's Men and Lord Strange's Men.

Linked to this, Shakespeare's professional life in London was marked by a number of financially advantageous arrangements that permitted him to share in the profits of his acting company - the Chamberlain's Men, later called the King's Men, and its two theatres - the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars. His plays were given special presentation at the courts of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I more frequently than those of any other contemporary dramatist. It is known that he risked losing royal favour only once, in 1599, when his company performed "the play of the deposing and killing of King Richard II" at the request of a group of conspirators against Elizabeth. In the subsequent inquiry, Shakespeare's company was absolved of complicity in the conspiracy.

About this time Shakespeare became one of the group of now-famous writers who gathered at the Mermaid Tavern located on Bread Street in Cheapside. The Friday Street Club (also called the Mermaid Club) was formed by Sir Walter Raleigh. Ben Johnson was its leading spirit and Shakespeare was a popular member. He was admired for his talent and loved for his kindliness.
Thomas Fuller writing about 50 years later, gave an amusing account of the conversation between Shakespeare and Jonson:

"Many were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson; which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war; Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow, in his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention."

Jonson sometimes criticized Shakespeare harshly. Nevertheless he later wrote a eulogy of Shakespeare that is remarkable for its feeling and acuteness. In it he said:

"Leavethee alone, for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sentforth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast oneto show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flight supon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza, and our Jame"

Although Shakespeare's life in London theatre life appeared to progress rapidly, it all came to a sticky end when in January 1593 the theatres in the capital were closed as a consequence of the plague. From December 1592 until December 1593 Stow (the Elizabethan archivist) reports 10,675 plague deaths - out of a total population of about 200,000. The theatres were allowed to open again briefly during the winter of 1593/94, but were closed again in February and remained closed until spring 1594. Life must have been hard for actors used to performing regularly to their public and many would have found themselves out of work.  Shakespeare however, was able to continue with his writing and in fulfilling social connections.

If Shakespeare was spending efforts writing lyric poetry and sonnets, he probably was not writing for the stage during 1593/early 1594, but this does not mean he did not write plays with a view to the reopening of the theatres or for the private entertainment of his aristocratic friends. In fact, it is often speculated that Love's Labour's Lost belongs to this period and the puzzling allusions to the "school of the night" and notable Elizabethans are inside jokes shared among the Wriothesley circle. The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to an earlier phase of this same period and may have been written as a private entertainment with an eye to eventual modification for the stage.

In December 1594 Shakespeare was listed by the Treasurer of the Queen's Chamber along with Will Kemp and Richard Burbage, the great clown and tragedian of the company, as receiving payment for two performances at Greenwich. These three, and four others - John Hemming, eventual co-editor of the First Folio among them - were the charter members of the a new theatre company organised under the patronage of Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, Chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth. They were known as the Lord Chamberlain's men. When they preformed publicly, it was at the Theatre, built by James Burbage (father of Richard) in 1576 in north London. Shakespeare became a sharer, or householder, in the company which meant that he was part owner/manager and as such shared in the profits. This provided him the stability necessary for his most fruitful years when he, as the company's principal playwright, produced an average of 2 plays per year until about 1611-1612, when he seems to have retired to Stratford. If Southampton rewarded Shakespeare financially for the writing of the sonnets, it would explain how Shakespeare could have afforded to become a sharer in the Chamberlain's men - an investment which formed the foundation of his lifelong financial success.

Between the years 1594 -1599 the Chamberlain's Men became the most popular acting company in London, being invited to perform at court far more often than any other group. Shakespeare must have acted quite a lot. Ben Jonson lists him in his1616 Folio of his Workes as having acted as the chief comedian in 'Every Man In His Humour' in 1598:

The principall Comoedians were,

WILL SHAKESPEARE.
AVG. PHILLIPS.
HEN. CONDEL.
WILL. SLYE.
WILL. KEMP. RIC. BVRBADGE.
IOH. HEMINGS.
THO. POPE.
CHR. BEESTON.
IOH. DVKE

Jonson again lists him as one of the principal tragedians in the 1603 production of 'Sejanus':

The principall Tragoedians were,

RIC. BVRBADGE.
AVG. PHILLIPS.
WILL. SLYE.
IOH. LOWIN. WILL SHAKE-SPEARE.
IOH. HEMINGS.
HEN. CONDEL.
ALEX. COOKE.

The years between1594 -1599 were very busy. He produced a steady stream of plays of the highest quality and verbal invention. He continued as a principal actor and manager in the Lord Chamberlain's men, blessed with a stable work environment in the all too unstable world of the theatre. Consequently, he prospered financially and made investments in his native Stratford, assembling a comfortable life and a solid estate. Finally in 1599, he became part owner in the most prestigious public playhouse in London, the Globe.

The Globe Theatre of 1599

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