erage of about L10 each, which,
making the usual allowance for the greater purchasing power of money,
would be equivalent to about $400, or an annual income of about $800.
During his second decade the prices for plays had so risen that he may
be estimated to have received about twice as much from this source as
in the early half of his career.

More profitable than playwriting was acting. Lee estimates Shakespeare's
salary as an actor before 1599 at L100 a year at least, exclusive of
special rewards for court performances, and we know that by 1635 an
actor-shareholder, such as Shakespeare latterly was, had a salary of
L180. Besides this, he became about 1599 a sharer, with Heming, Condell,
Philips, and others, in the receipts of the Globe Theater, erected in
1597-8 by Richard and Cuthbert Burbage. The annual income from a single
share was over L200, and Shakespeare may have had more than one. In 1610
he became a sharer also in the smaller Blackfriars Theater, after it had
been acquired by the Burbages.

The evidence thus accumulated of Shakespeare's having acquired a
substantial fortune is corroborated by what we know of the earnings of
other members of his profession, and it leaves no mystery about the
source of the capital which he invested in real property in Stratford
and London.

The death of Elizabeth and the accession of James I improved rather than
impaired Shakespeare's prospects. A patent, dated May 19, 1603,
authorizes the King's servants, "Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakespeare,
Richard Burbage ... and the rest of their associats freely to use and
exercise the arte and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, histories,
interludes, moralls, pastorals, stage-plaies, and such other like as
they have already studied, or hereafter shall use or studie, as well
for the recreation of our lovinge subjects, as for our solace and
pleasure when we shall thinke good to see them, duringe our pleasure."
By this document the Lord Chamberlain's Company became the King's, and
so remained during the rest of Shakespeare's connection with the stage.
At least a dozen instances are recorded in the Revels Accounts of the
Company's having acted before his Majesty, and on the occasion of a
performance before the court at the Earl of Pembroke's mansion of Wilton
House, L30 was given them "by way of his majesty's reward."
Shakespeare's name stands first in a list of nine actors who walked in a
procession on the occasion of James's e