note 451: Greg, _Henslowe's Diary_, I, 174.]

After a short interruption on account of the plague, during a part of
which time they traveled in the provinces, the Admiral's Men were
taken under the patronage of the youthful Henry, Prince of Wales, and
in the early spring of 1604 they resumed playing at the Fortune under
their new name, "The Prince's Servants."

[Illustration: EDWARD ALLEYN

(Reproduced by permission from a painting in the Dulwich Picture
Gallery; photograph by Emery Walker, Ltd.)]

For a time all went well. But from July, 1607, until December, 1609,
the plague was severe in London, and acting was seriously interrupted.
During this long period of hardship for the players, Henslowe and
Alleyn seem to have made an attempt to hold the troupe together by
admitting its chief members to a partnership in the building, just as
the Burbages had formerly admitted their chief players to a
partnership in the Globe. At this time there were in the troupe eight
sharers, or chief actors.[452] Henslowe and Alleyn, it seems, proposed
to allot to these eight actors one-fourth of the Fortune property. In
other words, according to this scheme, there were to be thirty-two
sharers in the new Fortune organization, Alleyn and Henslowe together
holding three-fourths of the stock, or twelve shares each, and the
eight actors together holding one-fourth of the stock, or one share
each. A document was actually drawn up by Henslowe and Alleyn, with
the name of the leader of the Fortune troupe, Thomas Downton,
inserted;[453] but since the document was not executed, the scheme,
it is to be presumed, was unsuccessful--at least, we hear nothing
further about it.[454]

[Footnote 452: See the Company's Patent of 1606, in The Malone
Society's _Collections_, I, 268.]

[Footnote 453: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 13.]

[Footnote 454: For an ordinance concerning "lewd jiggs" at the Fortune
in 1612, see _Middlesex County Records_, II, 83.]

On November 6, 1612, the death of the young Prince of Wales left the
company without a "service." On January 4, 1613, however, a new patent
was issued to the players, placing them under the protection of the
Palsgrave, or Elector Palatine, after which date they are known as
"The Palsgrave's Men."

On January 9, 1616, Henslowe, so long associated with the company and
the Fortune, died; and a year later his widow, Agnes, followed him. As
a result the entire Fortune property passed into the hands of All