IT WAS TWO weeks later that Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain and our patron, came to the Theatre himself. He did not come to watch a performance, indeed he had never seen a play in the Theatre, but instead arrived unexpectedly during a morning rehearsal. The first we knew of it was when four of his retainers, all wearing dark grey livery with the Carey badge of the white rose bright on their shoulders, strode into the yard. They wore swords, they came confidently, and those of us onstage went very still. The four men were followed by an older man, limping slightly, with a harsh, life-battered face, and a cropped grey beard. He was stocky, with a broad chest, and wore simple clothes, undecorated, but dyed a deep black, betraying their expense. He had a gold chain about his neck and a golden badge on his black velvet cap. If it had not been for the gold and the expensively dyed clothes, a man might have mistaken him for a tradesman, one who had spent his working life wrestling with timber or stone, a hard, strong man, and certainly not a man to cross lightly. ‘Master Shakespeare,’ he addressed my brother, ‘I received your message.’
‘My lord,’ my brother snatched off his hat and went down onto one knee. We all did the same. No one needed to tell us who the hard-faced older man was. The badge on his retainers’ shoulders told us all we needed to know. A fifth retainer, a slim man also in the dark grey livery that displayed the Carey badge, had followed the older man and now stood respectfully a few paces behind his lordship with a satchel in his hands.
‘No need to kneel, no need to kneel,’ Lord Hunsdon said. ‘I have business in Hampstead, and thought I might as well look at the place you fellows lurk.’ He turned to stare at the Theatre’s high galleries. ‘It reminds me of an inn yard.’
‘Very like, my lord,’ my brother agreed.
‘So this is a playhouse, eh?’ His lordship looked around with evident interest, gazing from the galleries to the stage’s high canopy supported by its twin pillars. ‘You think they’ll last?’
‘Last, my lord?’
‘There were no such things when I was a young man. Not one! Now there’s what? Three of them? Four?’
‘I think they’ll last, my lord. They’re popular.’
‘But not with the Puritans, eh? They’d have us all singing psalms instead of watching plays. Like those bloody Percies.’
My brother stiffened at the mention of the Pursuivants. ‘We managed to avoid blooding them, my lord.’
‘A pity,’ Lord Hunsdon said with a grin. Simon Willoughby, wearing a skirt over his hose, had fetched a chair from the tiring house and jumped off the stage to offer it, but the courtesy only provoked a scowl from Lord Hunsdon. ‘I’m not a bloody cripple, boy.’ He looked back to my brother. ‘There’s a disgusting man called Price. George Price. He’s the chief Pursuivant, and a pig in human form. Heard of him?’
‘I have heard of him, my lord, yes. But I don’t know him.’ My brother was doing all the talking for the company. Even Will Kemp, who was usually so voluble, was stunned into silence by the Lord Chamberlain’s arrival.
‘He’s an eager little bugger, our Piggy Price,’ Lord Hunsdon said. ‘He’s a Puritan, of course, which makes him tiresome. I don’t mind the bloody man finding Jesuits, but I’ll be damned if he’ll interfere with my retainers. Which you are.’
‘We have that honour, my lord.’
‘You’re unpaid retainers too, the best sort!’ Lord Hunsdon gave a bark of laughter. ‘I told the bloody man to leave you alone.’
‘I’m grateful to your lordship.’
‘Which he might or might not do. They’re an insolent pack of curs, the Percies. I suppose insolence goes with the office, eh?’
‘It frequently does, my lord,’ my brother said.
‘And the Queen likes her Pursuivants,’ the Lord Chamberlain continued. ‘She doesn’t want some bloody Jesuit slitting her throat, which is understandable, and Piggy Price is damned good at sniffing the buggers out. He’s valued by Her Majesty. I told him to leave you alone, but the moment he smells sedition he’ll let loose the dogs, and if they succeed in finding it then even I can’t protect you.’
‘Sedition, my lord?’ my brother sounded puzzled.
‘You heard me, Master Shakespeare. Sedition.’
‘We’re players, my lord, not plotters.’
‘He claimed you’re harbouring copies of A Conference.’ The accusation was hard and sharp, spoken in a quite different tone to his lordship’s previous remarks. ‘He has been informed, reliably he tells me, that you distribute copies of the damned book to your audiences.’
‘We do what, my lord?’ my brother asked in amazement.
We are players. We pretend, and by pretending, we persuade. If a man were to ask me whether I had stolen his purse I would give him a look of such shocked innocence that even before I offered a reply he would know the answer, and all the while his purse would be concealed in my doublet.
Yet at that moment we had no need to pretend. I doubt many of us knew what his lordship meant by ‘A Conference’, and so most of us just looked puzzled or worried. My brother plainly knew, but he also looked puzzled, even disbelieving. If we had been pretending at that moment then it would have been the most convincing performance ever given at the Theatre, more than sufficient to persuade the Lord Chamberlain that we were innocent of whatever sin he had levelled at us. My brother, frowning, shook his head. ‘My lord,’ he bowed low, ‘we do no such thing!’
James Burbage must have known what ‘A Conference’ was because he also bowed, and then, as he straightened, spread his hands. ‘Search the playhouse, my lord.’
‘Ha!’ Lord Hunsdon treated that invitation with the derision it deserved. ‘You’ll have hidden the copies by now. You take me for a fool?’
My brother spoke earnestly. ‘We do not possess a copy, my lord, nor have we ever possessed one.’
His lordship smiled suddenly. ‘Master Shakespeare, I don’t give the quills off a duck’s arse if you do have one. Just hide the damned thing well. Have you read it?’
My brother hesitated, then nodded. ‘Yes, my lord.’
‘So have I. But if Piggy Price’s men do find a copy here, you’ll all end up in the Marshalsea. All of you! My cousin,’ he meant the Queen, ‘will tolerate much, but she cannot abide that book.’
The Marshalsea is a prison south of the Thames, not far from the Rose playhouse, which is home to the Lord Admiral’s men with whom our company have a friendly rivalry. ‘My lord,’ my brother still spoke slowly and carefully, ‘we have never harboured a copy.’
‘I can’t see why you should.’ Lord Hunsdon was suddenly cheerful again. ‘It’s none of your damned business, is it? Fairies and lovers are your business, eh?’
‘Indeed they are, my lord.’
Lord Hunsdon clicked his fingers, and the thin retainer unbuckled his satchel and took out a sheaf of papers. ‘I like it,’ Lord Hunsdon said, though not entirely convincingly.
‘Thank you, my lord,’ my brother responded cautiously.
‘I didn’t read it all,’ his lordship said, taking the papers from the thin man, ‘but I liked what I read. Especially that business at the end. Pyramid and Thimble. Very good!’
‘Thank you,’ my brother said faintly.
‘But my wife read it. She says it’s a marvel. A marvel!’
My brother looked lost for words.
‘And