Category:Sussex's

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1569-1583

Thomas Radcliffe, third earl of Sussex (1557-1583) and Lord Chamberlain (1572-83), was the patron of a company of players apparently from 1569 to his death in 1583. The company had a high profile both on tour and at court. Appearing in provincial records as early as 1568-9, the company performed under the name of Sussex at Cambridge, Gloucester, Bristol, Folkestone, Faversham, Bath, Norwich, Oxford, and Coventry (REED PP; Ipswich (MSC II.3, pp. 267-9); at Canterbury, Dover, Faversham, and Folkestone (MSC VII, 14, 44, 60, 70); at Hengrave and Sudbury (MSC XI, 166, 197); and at Nottingham, Leicester, Abingdon, and Southampton (Murray I.305-6). During the middle 1570s the company was often called the Chamberlain's players, as at Coventry, Fordwich, Rye, Bath, Bristol, Faversham, and Norwich (REED PP), Ipswich (MSC II.3, pp. 269-70, 272), and Canterbury and Faversham ('MSA VII.15, 61). At Bristol, the company performed The Red Knight (REED PP). When Radcliffe became Lord Chamberlain, the company performed at court thirteen times, often on Candlemas (2 February). The Revels Accounts record the titles of their plays: Phedrastus, Phignon and Lucia, Philemon and Felicia, The Cynocephali, The Cruelty of a Stepmother, The Duke of Milan and the Marquis of Mantua, Murderous Michael, The Rape of the Second Helen, Portio and Demorantes, Sarpedon, and A History of Ferrar. The company had the two most talented clowns in the profession: Richard Tarlton and John Adams. Both men joined the Queen's players at their formation in March 1583, a shift in loyalties that preceded the death of their patron by several months (June). The instantaneous hegemony of the Queen's players and the demise of the third earl of Sussex closed this period of the company's history.

1585-1593

At the Rose, 1593-4

1602 and following

Bibliography

'Malone Society Collections II.3. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1907.
 Malone Society Collections VII. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Malone Society Collections XI. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980-1.
Murray, John Tucker. English Dramatic Companies 1558-1642. 2 vols. 1910, New York: Russell & Russell, 1963. Vol. I

Plays performed by the Earl of Sussex's Men