Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 edition. Excerpt: ... The River Front Of Old Somerset House, As It Appeared In Shakespeare's Time After the original Picture in the Dulwtch Gallery. Photographed by permission of the Governors of Alleyn s College of God's Gift Shakespeare at Somerset House. 19 specially appointed to wait on him during his stay in London, "people chosen for their good disposition and nobility, who were to serve him as pages or grooms-in-waiting, as their Majesties did not require their services themselves." Among them was a group of twelve gentlemen in red doublets and hose, with cloaks of the same, embroidered in gold with the King's cypher crowned; and among these was one, more notable than the rest, who may well have been, then or later, pointed out to the Ambassador, a certain interesting individual, known to the King and all the Court, the intimate associate of several prominent nobles, one of His Majesty's "Grooms of the Chamber," and the foremost poet and dramatist in England, no other, in fact, than William Shakespeare. The document--or rather the extract from it--which is printed below in facsimile, and which proves that he was present in the capacity of one of His Majesty's "Grooms of the Chamber," is to be found among the "Declared Accounts " in the Public Record Office, in one of the many rolls containing the accounts of Sir John Stanhope, afterwards Lord Stanhope of Harrington, "Treasurer of the Kynge's Majesties Chamber" in the early years of the reign of James I. From this very roll certain entries, noting payments to the King's players for various performances at Court, were printed as long ago as 1842 by Peter Cunningham in his Introduction to the "Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court," and have ever since formed part of the common stock of data...
