William Heminges (1602 – c. 1653?), also Hemminges, Heminge, and other variants, was a playwright and theatrical figure of the Caroline period. [1] He was the ninth child and third son of John Heminges, the actor and colleague of William Shakespeare, and his wife Rebecca.
William Heminges was christened on 3 October 1602 in the parish of St. Mary's, Aldermanbury, in London. He was educated at Winchester School and then at Christ Church, Oxford, where he attained his M.A. degree in 1628. Only two of his plays have survived, The Jews' Tragedy (1626; published 1662) and The Fatal Contract (c. 1639; published 1653). In these two tragedies, the dramatist was strongly influenced by the works of Shakespeare. A third play is lost: titled The Coursing of the Hare, or the Madcap, it was staged at the Fortune Theatre in March 1633.
Little is known of Heminges's life. The parish records of St. Giles in the Fields record the birth of a daughter in 1639, and the burials of two sons a decade later. [2] He was in financial difficulties in the middle 1630s, and spent some time in prison. His date of death is a mystery; Andrew Pennycuicke and Anthony Turner, the booksellers who issued The Fatal Contract in 1653, refer to him then as deceased.
Among Heminges's non-dramatic literary works, his satirical "Elegy on Randolph's Finger" (c. 1632) has gathered significant attention from scholars and critics. Its fullest version occurs in MS. Ashmole 38 in the collection of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. [3] The poem refers to an incident in which Thomas Randolph lost his finger "in a fray" with "a riotous gentleman." (Heminges and Randolph were friends and former schoolmates.) In the poem, the severed finger is carried into the Underworld by group of English poets that includes Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, George Chapman, Thomas Heywood, James Shirley, John Ford, John Webster, and Richard Brome, among others – the "neoterical refined wits" of the age.
Charon, however, refuses to ferry the group across the river Styx, because they can't pay his fee. (John Taylor the Water Poet tries to talk Charon into giving them a free ride...but unsuccessfully.) Eventually the poets obtain some of Mercury's quicksilver, and use that to pay the fare. Across the river, Randolph's finger is welcomed by Edmund Spenser, Geoffrey Chaucer, Rabelais, Plautus, Terence, and other worthies.
An excerpt from the longer poem, in slightly different form, is known by the title "On the Time Poets." It was first published anonymously in the 1656 collection Choice Drollery, Songs, and Sonnets.
As John Heminges' last surviving son, William Heminges inherited his father's shares in the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars Theatre at John Heminges's death in 1630. Together with Cuthbert Burbage, Richard Robinson and Winifred (d.1642), his wife, Joseph Taylor and John Lowin, William Heminges filed a Bill of Complaint on 28 January 1632 in the Court of Requests against the owner of the Globe, Sir Matthew Brend, in order to obtain confirmation of an extension of the 31-year lease originally granted by Sir Matthew Brend's father, Nicholas Brend. [4]
Heminges sold off his shares from 1630 to 1634, primarily to John Shank, comedian with the King's Men. William's sales to Shank earned him £156 in 1633 and £350 in 1634. William "was then in difficulties, and Shank disbursed additional small sums to him in prison." [5] Shank's sudden wealth in theatre shares (two shares in the Blackfriars and three in the Globe) provoked three other members of the King's Men, Robert Benfield, Thomas Pollard, and Eliard Swanston, to petition the Lord Chamberlain for a more equitable division of the wealth. The resulting controversy generated what are often termed the "Sharers's papers," documents that provide significant information of the theatrical conditions of the time. [6]
Sir William Davenant, also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil War and during the Interregnum.
James Shirley was an English dramatist.
Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam, and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.
John Marston was an English playwright, poet and satirist during the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods. His career as a writer lasted only a decade. His work is remembered for its energetic and often obscure style, its contributions to the development of a distinctively Jacobean style in poetry, and its idiosyncratic vocabulary.
The King's Men is 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.
John Heminges was an actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. Along with Henry Condell, he was an editor of the First Folio, the collected plays of Shakespeare, published in 1623. He was also the financial manager for the King's Men.
John Lowin was an English actor.
Joseph Taylor was a 17th-century English actor. As the successor of Richard Burbage as the leading actor with the King's Men, he was arguably the most important actor in the later Jacobean and the Caroline eras.
Richard Robinson was an actor in English Renaissance theatre and a member of Shakespeare's company the King's Men.
William Ostler was an actor in English Renaissance theatre, a member of the King's Men, the company of William Shakespeare.
Eliard Swanston, 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.
John Shank was an actor in English Renaissance theatre, a leading comedian in the King's Men during the 1620s and 1630s.
Events from the 1630s in England.
John Underwood was an early 17th-century actor, a member of the King's Men, the theatrics company of William Shakespeare.
Thomas Pollard was an actor in the King's Men – a prominent comedian in the acting troupe of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage.
King's Men personnel were the people who worked with and for the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men from 1594 to 1642. The company was the major theatrical enterprise of its era and featured some of the leading actors of their generation – Richard Burbage, John Lowin, and Joseph Taylor among other – and some leading clowns and comedians, like Will Kempe and Robert Armin. The company benefitted from the services of William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, and Philip Massinger as regular dramatists.
Thomas Savage of Rufford, Lancashire, was a member of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and one of the ten seacoal-meters in London. Together with William Leveson, he was one of two trustees used by the original shareholders of the Globe Theatre in the allocation of their shares in 1599. He was an associate of the actor and editor of the First Folio, John Heminges, and of John Jackson, both of whom were Shakespeare's trustees in the purchase of the Blackfriars Gatehouse. Savage amassed a considerable fortune, at the time of his death owning five houses in London and an inn called the George.
Sir Matthew Brend inherited from his father, Nicholas Brend, the land on which the first and second Globe Theatres were built, and which Nicholas Brend had leased on 21 February 1599 for a 31-year term to Cuthbert Burbage, Richard Burbage, William Shakespeare, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, John Heminges, and William Kempe. During much of the time he was the legal owner of the Globe, Matthew Brend was underage, and his properties were managed for him by Sir Matthew Browne, John Collet, Sir John Bodley, and Sir Sigismund Zinzan. In 1623 Brend conveyed the property on which the Globe was built to his wife, Frances, as part of her jointure. In 1632 he was sued in the Court of Requests by the remaining original lessee, Cuthbert Burbage, and others, for an extension of their original lease.