Eliard Swanston

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Eliard Swanston (died 1651), alternatively spelled Heliard, Hilliard, Elyard, Ellyardt, Ellyaerdt, and Eyloerdt, was an English actor in the Caroline era. He became a leading man in the King's Men, the company of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage, in the final phase of its existence.

Caroline era

The Caroline or Carolean era refers to the era in English and Scottish history during the Stuart period (1603–1714) that coincided with the reign of Charles I (1625–1642), Carolus being Latin for Charles. The Caroline era followed the Jacobean era, the reign of Charles's father James I & VI (1603–1625); it was followed by the Wars of the three Kingdoms (1642–1651) and the English Interregnum (1651–1660).

The King's Men was the acting company to which William Shakespeare (1564–1616) belonged for most of his career. Formerly known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, they became The King's Men in 1603 when King James I ascended the throne and became the company's patron.

William Shakespeare English playwright and poet

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Contents

Career

Swanston started his acting career with Prince Charles's Men around 1620. In 1622 he moved to the Lady Elizabeth's Men, and two years later transferred to the King's Men. He may have been brought into that company to replace the veteran John Underwood, who died in 1624. By 1631 he had acquired a role in the management of the company, along with Joseph Taylor and John Lowin; the three men received the company's payments for their performances at Court. In some cases, Swanston was the sole payee for the King's Men's Court performances; he received sums of £120 (February 1632), £270 (March 1633), and £220 (April 1634), and other amounts, in trust for the company. [1] Being a leader was not wholly positive: on 24 October 1633, Swanston and Lowin had to apologize to Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, for performing a play without Herbert's approval.

Prince Charles's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in Jacobean and Caroline England.

The Lady Elizabeth's Men, or Princess Elizabeth's Men, was a company of actors in Jacobean London, formed under the patronage of King James I's daughter Princess Elizabeth. From 1618 on, the company was called The Queen of Bohemia's Men, after Elizabeth and her husband the Elector Palatine had their brief and disastrous flirtation with the crown of Bohemia.

John Underwood was an early 17th-century actor, a member of the King's Men, the theatrics company of William Shakespeare.

Swanston gradually came to play some of the leading Shakespearean roles in revivals, including the title parts in Othello and Richard III . In the late 1630s he played the title character in George Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois, after the previous actor in the role, Taylor, had grown too "grey" for the role of a young firebrand. Swanston also originated some of the leading roles in the company's productions of Philip Massinger's plays. He played the role of Lugier, "the rough and confident tutor to the ladies," in a 1632 revival of Fletcher's The Wild Goose Chase . He was Melantius in revivals of The Maid's Tragedy , and may have played the lead in Philaster . He played Aretine the spy in The Roman Actor , and had roles in other Massinger plays, The Picture and Believe as You List ; he played the young lover Alcidonus in Arthur Wilson's The Swisser (1631). [2]

<i>Othello</i> play by Shakespeare

Othello is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603. It is based on the story Un Capitano Moro by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565. The story revolves around its two central characters: Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army and his unfaithful ensign, Iago. Given its varied and enduring themes of racism, love, jealousy, betrayal, revenge and repentance, Othello is still often performed in professional and community theatre alike, and has been the source for numerous operatic, film, and literary adaptations.

<i>Richard III</i> (play) Shakespearean history play

Richard III is a historical play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written around 1593. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified as such. Occasionally, however, as in the quarto edition, it is termed a tragedy. Richard III concludes Shakespeare's first tetralogy.

George Chapman 16th/17th-century English dramatist, poet, and translator

George Chapman was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been speculated to be the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century. Chapman is best remembered for his translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and the Homeric Batrachomyomachia.

(The scholar T. W. Baldwin developed a theory that the King's Men had specific actors for specific stock roles: Burbage and his successor Taylor specialized in "hero" parts, John Lowin in "tyrant" parts, Robert Benfield in "dignitary" parts, and the like. In Baldwin's scheme — which has left many other scholars unconvinced — Swanston specialized in "smooth villain" roles.) [3]

Robert Benfield was a seventeenth-century actor, noted for his longtime membership in the King's Men in the years and decades after William Shakespeare's retirement and death.

Controversy

In the mid-1630s Swanston became involved in a major controversy within the King's Men. In the 1633–35 period, comedian John Shank purchased three shares in the Globe Theatre and two in the Blackfriars Theatre from William Heminges, the son and heir of John Heminges. Swanston at the time was a sharer in the acting company, but not in either of the company's theatres, which were separately organized. Swanston and two other men in the same situation, Robert Benfield and Thomas Pollard, petitioned the Lord Chamberlain, Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, for the right to purchase lucrative theatre shares from Shanks and the Burbage family (Cuthbert Burbage and Winifred Robinson, Richard Burbage's widow). Pembroke ruled in their favor, and Shank and the Burbages protested. The affair generated a supply of documents, sometimes called the "sharers' papers," that throw light on the theatre conditions of the era. [4] Shanks, for example, asserted that each of the three petitioners, as a sharer in the company, had an annual income of £180, a very comfortable living for that era. The Burbages and Shank also complained that Swanston owned a third of one of the eight shares in the Blackfriars, and so wasn't entirely excluded from the householders' profits. The disagreement was not fatal for Swanston's credit in the troupe, by any means: on 5 June 1638, Swanston alone signed for a payment of £240 for the company's Court performances [5] (though by then both Shanks and Cuthbert Burbage were dead).

John Shank was an actor in English Renaissance theatre, a leading comedian in the King's Men during the 1620s and 1630s.

Globe Theatre 16th/17th-century theatre in London

The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, on land owned by Thomas Brend and inherited by his son, Nicholas Brend and grandson Sir Matthew Brend, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and closed by an Ordinance issued on 6 September 1642.

Blackfriars Theatre theatre in Renaissance London

Blackfriars Theatre was the name given to two separate theatres located in the former Blackfriars Dominican priory in the City of London during the Renaissance. The first theatre began as a venue for the Children of the Chapel Royal, child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs, and who from 1576 to 1584 staged plays in the vast hall of the former monastery. The second theatre dates from the purchase of the upper part of the priory and another building by James Burbage in 1596, which included the Parliament Chamber on the upper floor that was converted into the playhouse. The Children of the Chapel played in the theatre beginning in the autumn of 1600 until the King's Men took over in 1608. They successfully used it as their winter playhouse until all the theatres were closed in 1642 when the English Civil War began.

Aftermath

After the theatres closed in 1642 at the start of the English Civil War, Swanston became a jeweller and also a Presbyterian. Unusually for a professional actor, he was a supporter of the Parliamentary cause. (Since the Puritans were hostile to the theatre, most men of the theatre tended to be hostile to them in return.) Swanston did not sever all his connections with his former occupation, however: he was one of the ten King's Men who signed the dedication of the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio in 1647 (he was the third to sign, after Taylor and Lowin).

English Civil War series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists

The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers") over, principally, the manner of England's governance. The first (1642–1646) and second (1648–1649) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third (1649–1651) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The war ended with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.

The Beaumont and Fletcher folios were two large folio collections of the stage plays of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The first was issued in 1647, and the second in 1679. The two collections were important in preserving many works of English Renaissance drama.

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1647.

Swanston lived in the parish of St. Mary's Aldermanbury; he married in 1619, and fathered ten children.

Notes

  1. ↑ Gurr, Shakespeare Company, pp. 242-3.
  2. ↑ Gurr, Shakespeare Company, p. 242.
  3. ↑ Baldwin, Organisation and Personnel of the Shakespeare Company.
  4. ↑ Halliday, p. 449.
  5. ↑ Gurr, Shakespeare Company, p. 243.

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References

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