purpose." At this time, too, or not
long after, John Marston was allowed a share in the organization, and
thus was retained as one of its regular playwrights.

[Footnote 340: For the patent, commonly misdated January 30, see The
Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 267. Mr. Wallace, in _The Century
Magazine_ (September, 1910, p. 747), says that the company secured its
patent "through the intercessions of the poet Samuel Daniel." It is
true that the Children of Her Majesty's Royal Chamber of Bristol
secured their patent in 1615 at the intercession of Daniel, but I know
of no evidence that he intervened in behalf of the Blackfriars
troupe.]

The success of the new company is indicated by the fact that it was
summoned to present a play at Court in February, 1604, and again two
plays in January, 1605. Evans's activity in the management of the
troupe in spite of the order of the Star Chamber is evident from the
fact that the payment for the last two court performances was made
directly to him.

In the spring of 1604 the company gave serious offense by acting
Samuel Daniel's _Philotas_, which was supposed to relate to the
unfortunate Earl of Essex; but the blame must have fallen largely on
Daniel, who not only wrote the play, but also licensed its
performance. He was summoned before the Privy Council to explain, and
seems to have fully proved his innocence. Shortly after this he
published the play with an apology affixed.[341]

[Footnote 341: A letter from Daniel to the Earl of Devonshire
vindicating the play is printed in Grosart's _Daniel_, I, xxii.]

The following year the Children gave much more serious offense by
acting _Eastward Hoe_, a comedy in which Marston, Chapman, and Jonson
collaborated. Not only did the play ridicule the Scots in general, and
King James's creation of innumerable knights in particular, but one of
the little actors was actually made, it seems, to mimic the royal
brogue: "I ken the man weel; he is one of my thirty pound Knights."
Marston escaped by timely flight, but Jonson and Chapman were arrested
and lodged in jail, and were for a time in some danger of having their
nostrils slit and their ears cropped. Both Chapman and Jonson asserted
that they were wholly innocent, and Chapman openly put the blame of
the offensive passages on Marston.[342] Marston, however, was beyond
the reach of the King's wrath, so His Majesty punished instead the men
in control of Blackfriars. It was discovered that t