Of Shakespeare's personal history between 1592 and 1600 few facts are known. In 1596 his only son, flanmet, died and was buried on the 11th of August at Stratford. During the Christmas holidays his theatrical company performed twice before Elizabeth at Whitehall. In the spring of 1597 he made his first investment in real estate by the purchase of New Place, a mansion with about an acre of land in the centre of Stratford. In 1596 John Shakespeare, doubtless by his S011'A advice and at his expense. applied to the College of Heralds for a coat-of-arms; but, though the petition was approved in October of that year, the negotiations were not then concluded. In 1599 John made a new application to the College of Heralds, in which he refers to the action taken on that of 1596, and also requests that he and his son may be allowed to quarter on the coat the arms of the Ardens of IVilmeote, his wife's family. The heralds granted the coat, but sub stituted the arms of the Ardens of Alvanley in Cheshire, apparently because these belonged to a younger branch of the family, from which Mary Arden was descended. John Shakespeare died in 1601, two years afterwards, and there is no evidence that either he or his son used the Arden anus. William did use the Shakespeare anus as tricked by the heralds, and he may have felt that. they had become honorable enough with out displaying the connection with the Ardens. By 1599 William Shakespeare had made a name for himself that needed no lustre borrowed from ancestral rank. He went to London in 1535 or 15S6 a penniless adventurer, but in 1597 he had gained reputation and made money as actor and author, and could invest his surplus income in the purchase of the best house in Stratford. Besides defraying the expenses in obtaining the coat-of-arms, there is evidence that he helped to restore the fallen fortunes of his father. He re paired New Place. and added other lands to the estate. ln 1602 he spent the large sum of £320 in the purchase of 107 acres of land near Strat ford, and also bought a cottage and garden in the town.
The actor's business was then lucrative enough to excite the envy of pamphleteers; and if the actor got a share in the theatre or its profits. as Shakespeare did in 1599 when the Globe Theatre was built, it added materially to his income.
Shakespeare's receipts as an actor before 1599 were probably £100 a year, to which perquisites from Court performances might add £15 or so. His returns from his work as a dramatist would be much smaller. Before 1599 the prices paid for plays ranged from £6 to £15. the most that is known to have been paid. To this a slight gratu ity was added if the play was very successful, and the author sometimes had a share in the re ceipts of a 'benefit' on a second production. Shakespeare's income from the revision and writ ing of plays up to 1599 can hardly have been more than £20 a year, which, added to £110 or £115 from acting, would make his entire income £130 o• £135, equal to from seven to ten times that amount in modern money. The quarto editions of his plays published at this time and afterwards were evidently all piratical ven tures which yielded him nothing. From the successive editions of his poems—the only works printed under his personal supervision—he may have received something, but we have no means of estimating how much. According to Rowe's
biography (1709), Shakespeare once received a gift of £1000 from his generous patron. the Earl of Southampton. The amount (equal to at least £7000 or S35.000 now) is undoubtedly exagger ated: but Southampton would be likely to make some substantial acknowledgment of the com pliment paid him in the dedications of the Venus end Adonis and Lifetree. The only epistolary cor respondence now extant in which Shakespeare was a party and the only letter addressed to him have reference to business matters. In Jan uary, 159S. Abraham Sturley writes from Strat ford to his brother-in-law. Richard Quiney, who was in London, where the poet then was, sug gesting that lie obtain help from Shakespeare in certain business for the town; and later Quiney himself wrote to Shakespeare. asking the large loan of £30. This letter somehow got into the Stratford archives. Thomas Quiney, who married the poet's daughter, Judith, was a son of Richard Quincy.
We do not know in which of the London play houses of 1585 (the Theatre and the Curtain) Shakespeare found employment. In 1592 the Rose was opened on the Bankside, and that was doubtless the scene of his early successes as ac tor and dramatist. In 1594 lie was connected with another new theatre at Newington Butts; and afterwards he returned to the Theatre and the Curtain. The Theatre was torn down in 1599. and most of the materials were used in the erec tion of the Globe on the Bankside, which from that time appears to have been the only house with which he was regularly connected. At the Blnd:friars Theatre (established in 1596) Shake speare played a leading part in Jonson's Ercry Matt in his Humour, in September, 1598, after having secured the acceptance of the play, which the manager was on the point of refusing (Rowe). On Twelfth Night and Shrove Sunday. 1600, the Globe company acted before Elizabeth at Rich mond Palace, and on December 26th at White hall. In the following March they played at Somerset House before Lord Hunsdon and some foreign ambassadors. At Whitehall in the Christmas holidays of 1601-02 they presented four plays before the Queen. They also acted at Rich mond on Candlemas Day. February 2, 1603, less than two months before the death of Elizabeth (March 24, 1603). James arrived in London on the 17th of May, and ten days afterwards he granted a license to Shakespeare and his com pany to perform in London and the provinces. In December, 1603, when the King was visiting the Earl of Pembroke, one of Shakespeare's patrons, at Wilton, the company played before the distinguished party there assembled; in the following Christmas holidays they acted several times at Hampton, and on Candlemas Day in the same palace before the Florentine ambassadors. On the 15th of March, 1604, when James made his formal passage from the Tower to West minister, Shakespeare and the eight other ac tors to whom the royal license had been granted in 1603 marched in the royal train, and each was presented with four and a half yards of scarlet cloth, the usual dress allowance of players be longing to the household. They were now termed the King's servants, and took rank at Court among the grooms of the chamber.