License to Play

Theobald was the first to introduce to Shakespeare biography the license granted by King James in 1603 to Shakespeare and his fellow actors.  In a passage dealing with Shakespeare's possible retirement from acting (where, by the way, he agrees with Pope in doing away with the identification of Shakespeare with Spenser's dead Willy) he mentions the license:

"It is said, our Author spent some Years before his Death, in Ease, Retirement, and the Conversation of his Friends, at his Native Stratford. I could never pick up any certain Intelligence, when he relinquish'd the Stage. I know, it has been mistakenly thought by some, that Spenser's Thalia, in his Tears of the Muses, where she laments the Loss of her Willy in the Comic Scene, has been apply'd to our Author's quitting the Stage. But Spenser himself, 'tis well known, quitted the Stage of Life in the Year 1598 ; and, five Years after this, we find Shakespeare's Name among the Actors in Ben Jonson's Sejanus, which first made its Appearance in the Year 1603.  Nor, surely, could he then have any Thoughts of retiring, since, that very Year, a Licence under the Privy-Seal was granted by K. James I. to him and Fletcher, Burbage, Phillippes, Hemings, Condel, &c. authorizing them to exercise the Art of playing Comedies, Tragedies, &c. as well at their usual House call'd the Globe on the other Side of the Water, as in any Parts of the Kingdom, during his Majesty's Pleasure (A Copy of which Licence is preserv'd in Rymer's Foedera)."

Rymer (1643 - 1713 - the same Thomas Rymer who attacked Shakespeare in so thoroughgoing a manner in Short View of Tragedy: Its Original Excellency and Corruption (1693); and The Tragedies of the Last Age Consider'd and Examined by the Practice of the Ancients and by the Common Sense of all Ages (1678)) became historeographer royal in 1692, and published Foedera--a collection of treaties and other court documents) between 1704 and (posthumously) 1716.  As I say, Theobald introduced the license to Shakespeare biography in his Preface to his 1733 edition of the plays.

Since it is sometimes difficult to find a text of the license, I reproduce it here, taken from Halliwell-Phillipps, The Life of William Shakespeare, 1848, p. 203.  The warrant (though Theobald uses the term license, warrant is the more correct term) bears the date May 17, 1603 and takes Shakespeare's company into the king's service as the King's Men, giving them the right to play in their accustomed house and to tour within the realm.

By the King. Right trusty and welbeloved counsellor, we greete you well and will and commaund you, that under our privie seale in your custody for the time being, you cause our letters to be derected to the keeper of our greate seale of England, commaunding him under our said greate seale, he cause our letters to be made patents in forme following. James, by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, Fraunce and Irland, defendor of the faith, &c., to all justices, maiors, sheriffs, constables, headboroughes, and other our officers and loving subjects, greeting; Know ye, that we of our speciall grace, certaine knowledge, and meere motion, have licenced and authorized, and by these presentes doe licence and authorize, these our servants, Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillippes, John Hemmings, Henrie Condell, William Sly, Robert Armyn, Richard Cowlye, and the rest of their associats, freely to use and exercise the arte and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, histories, enterludes, moralls, pastoralls, stage plaies, and such other like, as thei have already studied, or hereafter shall use or studie, as well for the recreation of our loving subjects, as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall thinke good to see them, during our pleasure; and the said comedies, tragedies, histories, enterludes, moralls, pastoralls, stage plaies, and such like, to shew and exercise publiquely to their best commoditie, when the infection of the plague shall decrease, as well within theire now usuall howse called the Globe, within our county of Surrey, as also within anie towne halls, or moat halls, or other convenient places within the liberties and freedome of any other citie, universitie, towne or borough whatsoever within our said realmes and dominions. Willing and commaunding you, and every of you, as you tender our pleasure, not only to permit and suffer them heerin, without any your letts, hinderances, or molestations, during our said pleasure, but also to be ayding or assisting to them yf any wrong be to them offered; and to allowe them such former courtesies, as hathe bene given to men of their place and qualitie, and also what further favour you shall shew to these our servants for our sake we shall take kindly at your hands, and these our letters shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge in this behalfe. Given under our signet at our manner of Greenewiche the seavententh day of May in the first yeere of our raigne of England, France, and Ireland, and of Scotland the six and thirtieth.

It is fortunate the document was printed in Foedera, and, of course, could be consulted among the Privy Seal papers, because in the paragraph after this one in Halliwell-Phillipps Life reference is made to one of the forgeries of the infamous John Payne Collier, at the time unknown as a forger.  He, along with Halliwell-Phillipps, Alexander Dyce and Charles Knight were founders of the Shakespeare Association which, in the 1850s, foundered on the proofs of Colliers infamous deeds.  Halliwell-Phillipps, Knight and Dyce are remembered fondly for their many contributions.  Not so Collier, though other than Halliwell-Phillipps, was probably the single most original contributor to authentic Shakespeare facts during the nineteenth century.