Such was the end of the first short-lived London playhouse. But the new house, which was built out of its materials on the "Bankside," was the celebrated "Globe," the name of which is inseparably connected with that of Shakespeare.
As we said above, James Burbage, the creator of The Theatre, belonged to the company which played under the patronage of Lord Leicester, and therefore went under the name of "Lord Leicester's Servants" or "Men." The four other actors, who in 1574 received a royal license to act from Queen Elizabeth, were John Perkin, John Lanham, William Jonson, and Robert Wilson.
While James Burbage was no doubt the leader of the company, Robert Wilson is supposed to have been its chief actor, at all events of comic parts, and he was the only one among the five who was also a dramatic author. Under his name, but after his death, Cuthbert Burbage published, in 1594, _The Prophecy of the Cobbler_; and among anonymous plays the following are ascribed to him: _Fair Eve, The Miller's Daughter from Manchester, The Three Ladies of London_, etc.
Most likely some of Wilson's plays were acted in The Theatre. With this exception the internal history of this playhouse is rather obscure, and very little is known of its _répertoire_. A few titles may be found in contemporary literature, such as _The Blacksmith's Daughter_, mentioned by the Puritan Gosson in his _School of Abuse_, as "containing the treachery of Turks, the honorable bounty of a noble mind, the shining of virtue in distress," _The Conspiracy of Catilina, Cæsar and Pompey_, and _The Play about the Fabians_.
All these must have belonged to the earliest répertoire of The Theatre, for Gosson's _School of Abuse_ appeared in 1579.
It is of more interest that Thomas Lodge mentions the original pre-Shakespearean _Hamlet_ as having been acted in The Theatre. He speaks of one who "looks as pale as the visard of the ghost which cries so miserably at The Theatre, like an oister-wife, 'Hamlet revenge.'"
The same company, originally "Lord Leicester's Servants," continued to act in The Theatre till it was pulled down. But the company several times changed its patron and consequently its name. In 1588 Lord Leicester died, and after his death Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, became the patron of the company; till 1592, therefore, the actors were called "Lord Strange's Men." But in 1592 Lord Strange was created earl of Derby; consequently the troupe became for two years "The Earl of Derby's Men." In 1594 the Earl of Derby died, and Henry Carey, first Lord Hunsdon and lord chamberlain, undertook to become patron of the company, which, therefore, adopted the name of "The Lord Chamberlain's Servants." The son of Lord Hunsdon, George Carey, second Lord Hunsdon, after his father's death (in 1596) also inherited the patronage of the actors, and for almost a year they had to content themselves with being called "Lord Hunsdon's Men," until Lord Hunsdon became lord chamberlain, like his father, and allowed the company to resume the title of "The Lord Chamberlain's Servants," 1597. This name the actors retained until the accession of King James, in 1603, after which they were promoted to the title of "The King's Players"; this title put them in the first rank, which, indeed, they had long held in reality, and which they kept till the suppression of the playhouses in 1642.