Viewing Event Record: Requests, Witter vs Heminges and Condell: The defendants submit an answer

Abstract

John Heminges and Henry Condell respond to John Witter's bill of complaint. Heminges and Condell provide extensive background on the division of the Globe playhouse shares. The original shareholders -- which included William Shakespeare, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, John Heminges and William Kempe -- each possessed 'a fift parte of the said Moitie of the said gardens & groundes' of the Globe playhouse. After William Kempe's share was regranted and divided between Shakespeare, Phillips, Pope, and Heminges, the share in question increased to a 'fiveth parte and the fourth parte of another fiveth parte.' Heminges also stipulates that Augustine Phillips willed 'one third parte of all his goods & chattells to the said Anne,' but he does not know whether she elected to make the share of the Globe part of this third. He points out that the will of Augustine Phillips made Anne executrix under the condition that she not remarry after his death; if she did remarry, John Heminges, Richard Burbage, and Timothy Whitehorn would become executors, 'as though the same Anne had never byn named.' If Anne had assigned the share to Witter after marriage, Heminges maintains that it 'was and is meerely void in Lawe.' Heminges also provides an account of how the sharers resolved to rebuild the Globe after its destruction by taxing each share. Witter did not respond to requests for his contribution, and Heminges eventually took possession of his share as a result. Because the expense of re-building the playhouse was to be large, and because he he doubted that Witter would benefit from the new playhouse, as the lease was soon to expire, he transferred a moiety of Witter's original share to Henry Condell. The re-edification of the playhouse, he notes, has since cost Heminges and Condell approximately £120. Heminges also denies that he or any other sharer is in possession of any assignment of the share between Anne Phillips and the plaintiff, but maintains that he has a copy of Augustine Phillips' will and the original deed to the share. He also maintains that upon repayment of the 50l mortgage of the deed, Anne Phillips urged him to retain the deed to the share because 'deluerye thereof vnto the said Complainant would be her vtter vndoing.' The answer concludes by noting that Heminges has 'divers & manie times in Charitie & to relieve' given a 'greate some of money' to Witter, Anne Phillips and her children, and that any notion that the defendants have attempted to defraud them is 'falsely & slaunderously suggested.'

Date Event Recorded

Date

From: 28 April 1619 (Source of claim: original)

Date Event Happened

Date

From: 28 April 1619 (Source of claim: original)

Venues

Name

Globe (I)

Name

Globe (II)

Troupes

Name

King's Men (1603-1625)

People