Page:Shakespeare of Stratford (1926) Yale.djvu/72

56 it was played before the King’s majesty at Whitehall upon St. Stephen's Night [Dec. 26] at Christmas last by his Majesty’s Servants, playing usually at the Globe on the Bankside.

. This is quoted for the evidence it gives of the importance which the publishers attached to Shakespeare’s name on a play. King Lear was printed in 1608 with a title-page which similarly plays up the poet’s name:

''M. William Shak-speare: His True Chronicle History of the Life and Death of King Lear and his three Daughters. With the unfortunate life of Edgar, son and heir to the Earl of Gloster, and his sullen and assumed humor of Tom of Bedlam: As it was played before the King’s Majesty at Whitehall upon St. Stephen’s Night in Christmas Holidays, by his Majesty’s Servants playing usually at the Globe on the Bankside.''

Entries in burial register, St. Saviour’s Church, Southwark, December 31, 1607.

''1607  Decemb. 31 Edmond Shakespeare, a player, in the Church.''

''Burials, December, 1607. 31. Edmund Shakspeare, a player, buried in the Church with a forenoon knell of the great bell, xx s.'' (Sexton’s Note.)

. St. Saviour’s was the church nearest the Globe Theatre; in it the dramatists Fletcher and Massinger were later buried. Edmund Shakespeare was in his twenty-eighth year when he died. He appears to have