favorite
comedian, Richard Tarleton, the immortal "Lord of Mirth," and John
Lanham, the leader and apparently the manager of the troupe. James
Burbage, who may by this time, if not before, have retired from
acting, was not included.

[Footnote 91: For a list of the Queen's Men see Wallace, _op. cit._,
p. 11.]

The newly organized Queen's Men in all probability occupied the
Theatre which had been left vacant by the dissolution of Leicester's
company. Mr. Wallace denies this, mainly on the evidence of a permit
issued by the Lord Mayor, November 28, 1583, granting the Queen's Men
the privilege of acting "at the sign of the Bull [Inn] in Bishopgate
Street, and the sign of the Bell [Inn] in Gracious Street, and nowhere
else within this city." But this permit, I think, lends scant support
to Mr. Wallace's contention. The Lord Mayor had no authority to issue
a license for the Queen's Men to play at the Theatre, for that
structure was outside the jurisdiction of the city. The Privy Council
itself, no doubt, had issued such a general license when the company
was organized under royal patronage.[92] And now, ten months later,
on November 26, 1583, the Council sends to the Lord Mayor a request
"that Her Majesty's players may be suffered to play ... within the
city and liberties _between this and shrovetide next_"[93]--in other
words, during the winter season when access to the Theatre was
difficult. It was customary for troupes to seek permission to act
within the city during the winter months.[94] Thus the Queen's Men, in
a petition written probably in the autumn of the following year, 1584,
requested the Privy Council to dispatch "favorable letters unto the
Lord Mayor of London to permit us to exercise within the city," and
the Lord Mayor refused, with the significant remark that "if in winter
... the foulness of season do hinder the passage into the fields to
play, the remedy is ill conceived to bring them into London."[95]
Obviously the Queen's Men were seeking permission to play in the city
only during the cold winter months; during the balmy spring, summer,
and autumn months--for actors the best season of the year--they
occupied their commodious playhouse in "the fields."

[Footnote 92: Such a license would include also permission to act in
the provinces. This latter was soon needed, for shortly after their
organization the Queen's Men were driven by the plague to tour the
provinces. They were in Cambridge on July 9, an