t to a connection from the beginning with the interests of James
Burbage and his sons.

Though other companies played at intervals at Burbage's Theatre at, and
shortly following, 1586-87, the period usually accepted as marking the
beginning of Shakespeare's connection with theatrical affairs, it shall
be made evident that the Lord Chamberlain's--recently Lord
Hunsdon's--company, of which James Burbage was at that date undoubtedly
the manager, made their centre at his house when performing in London.
That this was a London company with an established theatrical home in
the most important theatre in London, between the years 1582 and 1589,
is established by the facts that James Burbage was its manager, and the
infrequency of mention of it in the provincial records. It is probable
that at this early period it was not a full company of actors, but that
Lord Hunsdon's licence covered Burbage and his theatrical employees and
musicians.

Numerous and continuous records of provincial visits for a company infer
that it would be better known as a provincial than as a London company,
while the total lack of any record of Court performances, taken in
conjunction with a large number of records of provincial performances,
would imply that such a company had no permanent London abiding-place,
such as Lord Hunsdon's company undoubtedly had in Burbage's Theatre.

The fact that James Burbage, the leader of Leicester's company in its
palmy days--1574 to 1582--was, between 1582 and 1589, the leader of Lord
Hunsdon's company, when coupled with the fact that they appeared before
the Court during this interval, gives added evidence that it was a
recognised London company at this period.

Much ambiguity regarding James Burbage's theatrical affiliations in the
years between 1583 and 1594 has been engendered by the utterly
gratuitous assumption that he joined the Queen's players upon the
organisation of that company by Edmund Tilney, the Master of the Revels,
in 1583, leaving the Earl of Leicester's players along with Robert
Wilson, John Laneham, and Richard Tarleton at that time. We have
conclusive evidence, however, against this assumption. James Burbage
worked under the patronage of Lord Hunsdon and was undoubtedly the owner
of the Theatre in 1584, although Halliwell-Phillipps, and others who
have followed him in his error have assumed, on account of his having
mortgaged the lease of the Theatre in the year 1579 to one John Hyde, a
grocer