6 Charles William Wallace 



tion to any theatre of Shakespeare's time. Among the Patent 

 Rolls at the Public Record Office (7 James I, part 39), is a 

 patent of 15 April, 1609, granted by King James to ten actors, 

 servants to the Queen, then acting at the Red Bull and the Cur- 

 tain. This was first printed by T. E. Tomlins in The Shake- 

 speare Society's Papers, 1847. Dr. F. J. Furnivall published in 

 The New Shakespeare Society Transactions (1877-1879) cer- 

 tain extracts from the Lord Chamberlain's accounts, preserved 

 in the Public Record Office, showing the amount of red cloth 

 granted for the King's Procession through London at his corona- 

 tion in 1604, to William Shakespeare and his associates at the 

 Globe, who were known as the King's Men, to the Prince's actors 

 at the Fortune, and to the Queen's men, who then or soon after 

 occupied the Red Bull. We know also some of the plays acted 

 there, and the names of the chief actors throughout the reign 

 of James I. 



In 1885 Mr. James Greenstreet, who, for many years during 

 his genealogical researches at the Public Record Office and else- 

 where, was employed by Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps to report 

 to him any documents bearing on Shakespeare or the stage, 

 chanced upon a number of valuable records. Among these was 

 a Chancery suit between members of the Red Bull company, the 

 will of Thomas Green, and three of the minor documents, of 

 easy access, in the Woodford-Holland series presented entire in 

 the following pages. He published his discoveries in Nezv 

 Shakespeare Society Transactions and The Athenaeum, as also 

 separately, in 1885. All of them are reprinted in F. G. Fleay, 

 A Chronicle History of the London Stage (1890). 



Thomas Green's will, when isolated, furnishes little informa- 

 tion about the Red Bull. But it is of some service when cor- 

 related with other matters. The Woodford-Holland order of 

 May 15, 1613, the decree of June 23 following, and the affidavit 

 of July 6, the three which Greenstreet found, fall into proper 

 place in the following new series, so far as the great gaps and 

 losses allow. They are also now printed for the first time ac- 

 curately. The Chancery suit of May, 1623, yields invaluable 

 information on the management of the company. But as that 



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