Shakespeare Magazine 07

The Essex Plot
“Staging the deposition of a
king in front of a fickle mob
could have been politically if
not physically dangerous”
The earliest records of Shakespeare’s play
Richard II have caused scholars to date its
composition to 1595, six years before the
failed revolt. Until 8 February 1601, the
day of Essex’s revolt, no evidence exists that
indicates the Crown was interested in Richard
II. On this day, Augustine Phillips, one of
the members of the Lord Chamberlain’s
Men, testified before Queen Elizabeth’s Privy
Council, her cabinet of royal advisors, that
subordinates of Essex contracted the players
to: “have the play of the deposing and killing
of King Richard II to be played… promising
to get them [forty shillings] more than
their ordinary to play it… and so played it
accordingly.”
Richard II was an old play; the two rival
theatres of the day presented plays in repertory,
with rotating schedules including new plays.
As Richard II was six years old, the players,
who had learned and presented many more
plays in the intervening years, protested. But
Essex’s men would have no other play. The
Lord Chamberlain’s Men would not play
Richard II unless they had extra payment to
defray the anticipated loss. Being paid forty
shillings for a command performance would
be a considerable sum. Philip Henslowe,
manager of rival company The Lord Admiral’s
Men, kept an assiduous diary of daily incomes
for his theatre, and this diary has survived. In
it we find that forty shillings was a common
but sporadic catch in the London theatre at
the time. Henslowe’s Diaries note that, in
December 1594, seven plays made at least
a forty shilling gate in a single showing,
and many plays which made this sum were
premiers of new works. In the case of the Essex
performance, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men
were paid as much as a successful opening
performance, and those forty shillings were in
addition to the “ordinary to play it”, or the fee
for a command performance, which could be
considerably more.
The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, in securing
more money for their play may well have saved
their lives. If they had truly been conspirators,
then their politics might have taken a turn
away from financial concerns. Rebellion
would likely take precedence over personal
income. If the Privy Council also followed
this reckoning, then the forty shillings was
evidence for the innocence of the players.
If the Lord Chamberlain’s Men were truly
dedicated to Essex’s cause, they likely would
not have pointed out the possible financial
risk. To the Privy Council, a group of players
concerned about their incomes agreed to play
Richard II providing they received a security
from monetary loss. Because Richard II was
of no great matter to the players other than as
a matter of income, they were likely not Essex
supporters. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, in
insisting upon a financial surety against loss,
proved more interested in the gate than the
state and so indicated their innocence.
The Lord Chamberlain’s Men had
every reason to avoid offending the Crown.
Playwriting in the English Renaissance was
dangerous business, and William Shakespeare
knew it. In 1597, his fellow playwright
Thomas Nashe fled the country following
his arrest after the controversial and nowlost
play The Isle of Dogs. His writings were
subsequently suppressed and burned. Ben
Jonson was also imprisoned for The Isle of
Dogs and would return to the clink in 1605
with Marston and Chapman for Eastward
Ho. In 1625, the Crown imprisoned Thomas
Middleton and all of the actors from A Game
At Chess, as the play satirised the Spanish
Ambassador. These playwrights and actors’
accusers put them in jail for mere slander.
For possible sedition, which meant in that
time “a concerted movement to overthrow an
established government”, Shakespeare would
have been charged with High Treason. Had
Shakespeare served at all as an accomplice to
treason, his head would have wound up on a
spike over Traitor’s Gate.
44 SHAKESPEARE magazine