Viewing Event Record: Chancery, Worth and Blaney vs Baskervile and Browne: Baskervile and Browne reply

Abstract

Susan Baskervile and her son William Browne answer the Chancery suit brought by the former Queen Anne's Men, now the Red Bull (Revels) company, over monies owed to her as the widow of company member Thomas Greene. Baskervile says that upon his death Greene was owed £37 in money lent to the company, plus £80 for his whole share in the company (she derives this amount from the £40 given to the widow of George Pulham for his half-share not long before Greene's own death). She says Beeston and the company agreed to pay her this amount in installments, but only after the Robert Sidney, now the Earl of Leicester, in his then capacity as Lord Chamberlain of Queen Anne's household, intervened on her behalf. She then says that after her marriage to James Baskervile, he was invited in June 1615 to invest £57 10s in the company for a further annuity of 20p a day. The company only paid this amount for a month, and according to Baskervile they were in arrears £42 by June 1616. The answer then details the negotiations by which the company agreed to resume and increase the daily payments in return for further investments, and her subsequent struggles, in which she is joined by her trustee William Jordan, to receive the payments. She gives an alternate and more detailed version of events leading to the June 1617 agreement from that given in the bill of complaint (including the non-payment of acting wages to her son William Browne). According to Baskervile, the agreement included performances by the company at the Cockpit/Phoenix as well as the Red Bull. The key requirement for payment to her or her assigns is that four or more of the player/sharers named play together near London or at court. Baskervile then gives the details of various bonds between the players and Jordan to guarantee the payments. She then denies that she in any way colluded with Beeston, and contradicts many of the particulars in the bill of complaint concerning the agreements with the company for her annuity payments. Incidentally, the answer provides evidence that the company moved back to the Red Bull following the apprentices riot of 4 March 1617, and performed there until the Cockpit was repaired, 'on or about the third day of June' 1617.

Date Event Recorded

Date

From: 16 June 1623 (Source of claim: original)

Date Event Happened

Date

From: August 1612 To: 1623 (Source of claim: transcription)

Venues

Name

Phoenix/Cockpit

Name

Red Bull

Troupes

Name

Queen Anne's Men

Name

Red Bull (Revels) Company (1619-c1623)

People