ned Henslowe at this time and some of the properties came to
the Burbage organisation, we may infer that they were brought as
properties by men who came from Pembroke's company to Burbage.

Edward Alleyn, who toured the provinces in the summer of 1593 with Lord
Strange's company, and for the same reason that Pembroke's toured at
this time, _i.e._ owing to the plague in London, wrote to Henslowe in
September 1593, from the country, inquiring as to the whereabouts of
Pembroke's company, and was told by Henslowe that they had returned to
London five or six weeks before, as they could not make their charges
travelling. He further informed him that he had heard that they were
compelled to pawn their apparel. The fact that the fortunes of
Pembroke's company should be a matter of interest to Alleyn and Henslowe
appears to imply that it was a new theatrical venture of some
importance, and that it probably had in its membership some of the
Admiral's, Strange's, or Queen's company's old players. That a new
company should play twice before the Court, in what was evidently the
first or second year of its existence, speaks well for the influence of
its management and for the quality of its plays and performances. After
this mention of Pembroke's company in Henslowe's letter to Alleyn in
September 1593, we hear nothing further concerning it as an independent
company until 1597. At that time Gabriel Spencer and Humphrey Jeffes,
who were evidently Pembroke's men in 1592-93, became members of, and
sharers in, the Lord Admiral's company, with which they had evidently
worked--though under Pembroke's licence--between 1594 and 1597.

It is now agreed by critics that the Admiral's and Chamberlain's men,
who had been united under Alleyn for the past two years, divided their
forces and fortunes in June 1594, or earlier. It is evident that some of
Pembroke's company's plays were absorbed by the Lord Chamberlain's
company, and that a few of the Pembroke men joined the Lord Admiral's
company at this time. As evidence of the absorption of the plays of
Pembroke's men by Lord Strange's players is the fact that between 3rd
and 13th June 1594, when Strange's players acted under Henslowe for the
last time, three of the seven plays they then presented,--_Hamlet_,
_Andronicus_, and _The Taming of a Shrew_,--while all old plays, were
new to the repertory of Strange's company presented upon Henslowe's
stages, and furthermore, that all three of these plays