5 November, 1597 - Friar Spendleton and the end of the Diary!

Here's what the Admiral's Men and Pembroke's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: 5 | tt at fryer splendelton |  00 | 14

In modern English: 5^th [November, 1597] ... total at Friar Spendleton ... 14 shillings

Portrait of a Camaldulense
Friar by Moroni (1560s)

And so, with an under-attended performance of a lost play about which we know absolutely nothing, Henslowe's Diary comes to an end! That's all, folks.

It's an anticlimax, to be sure. But it's worth stressing that this isn't the end of the Diary as such; rather, it's simply the last entry in Henslowe's lists of named performances. Henslowe will continue to record box office information; however, he will no longer give the names of the plays, so the lists become less interesting: pure accountancy without any attention to what is happening on stage. (To be strictly accurate, two performances will inexplicably be named in 1599, but I decided not to trouble with them!)

No-one knows why Henslowe stopped naming the plays. But this shift in the Diary seems to correspond with the retirement of Edward Alleyn as actor, which must have felt like the end of an era.  

That, then, is the end of Henslowe's Diary ... as a Blog! But stay tuned, because over the next few days I will tell some tales about what happened next, and I will sum up the highs and lows of six years at the Rose. 

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

Comments?

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