at the members of
Pembroke's Company[255] became each severally bound for the sum of
L100 to play at the Swan for one year, beginning on February 21, 1597.

[Footnote 255: I cannot agree with Mr. Wallace that Langley induced
these players to desert Henslowe, secured for them the patronage of
Pembroke, and thus was himself responsible for the organization of the
Pembroke Company.]

This troupe contained some of the best actors in London; and Langley,
in anticipation of a successful year, "disbursed and laid out for
making of the said house ready, and providing of apparel fit and
necessary for their playing, the sum of L300 and upwards." Since he
was at very little cost in making the Swan ready, "for the said house
was then lately afore used to have plays in it," most of this sum went
for the purchase of "sundry sort of rich attire and apparel for them
to play withall."

Everything seems to have gone well until near the end of July, when
the company presented _The Isle of Dogs_, a satirical play written in
part by the "young Juvenal" of the age, Thomas Nashe, and in part by
certain "inferior players," chief of whom seems to have been Ben
Jonson.[256] The play apparently attacked under a thin disguise some
persons high in authority. The exact nature of the offense cannot now
be determined, but Nashe himself informs us that "the troublesome stir
which happened about it is a general rumour that hath filled all
England,"[257] and the Queen herself seems to have been greatly
angered. On July 28, 1597, the Privy Council sent a letter to the
Justices of Middlesex and of Surrey informing them that Her Majesty
"hath given direction that not only no plays shall be used within
London or about the city or in any public place during this time of
summer, but that also those playhouses that are erected and built only
for such purposes shall be plucked down." Accordingly the Council
ordered the Justices to see to it that "there be no more plays used in
any public place within three miles of the city until Allhallows
[i.e., November 1] next"; and, furthermore, to send for the owners of
the various playhouses "and enjoin them by vertue hereof forthwith to
pluck down quite the stages, galleries, and rooms that are made for
people to stand in, and so to deface the same as they may not be
employed again to such use."[258]

[Footnote 256: For an account of _The Isle of Dogs_ see E.K. Chambers,
_Modern Language Review_ (1909), IV, 407, 511