Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 3).pdf/352

 

(c) Play for the Admiral's, 1603

(xviii) The Boss of Billingsgate.

With Day and one or more other 'felowe poetes', March 1603.

CHRISTOPHER HATTON (1540-91).

Christopher Hatton, of Holdenby, Northants, entered the Inner Temple in Nov. 1559. He was Master of the Game at the Grand Christmas of 1561, and the mask to which he is said to have owed his introduction to Elizabeth's favour was probably that which the revellers took to Court, together with Norton (q.v.) and Sackville's Gorboduc on 18 Jan. 1562. He became a Gentleman Pensioner in 1564, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, Captain of the Guard in 1572, Vice-Chamberlain and Privy Councillor in 1578, when he was knighted, and Lord Chancellor on 25 April 1587. He was conspicuous at Court in masks and tilts, and is reported, even as Lord Chancellor, to have laid aside his gown and danced at the wedding of his nephew and heir, Sir William Newport, alias Hatton, to Elizabeth Gawdy at Holdenby in June 1590. His only contribution to the drama is as writer of an act of Gismond of Salerne at the Inner Temple in 1568 (cf. s.v. Wilmot). WILLIAM HAUGHTON (c. 1575-1605). Beyond his extant work and the entries in Henslowe's diary, in the earliest of which, on 5 Nov. 1597, he appears as 'yonge' Haughton, little is known of Haughton. Cooper, ''Ath. Cantab.'' ii. 399, identified him with an alleged Oxford M.A. of the same name who was incorporated at Cambridge in 1604, but turns out to have misread the name, which is 'Langton' (Baugh, 15). He worked for the Admiral's during 1597-1602, and found himself in the Clink in March 1600. Baugh, 22, prints his will, made on 6 June 1605, and proved on 20 July. He left a widow Alice and children. Wentworth Smith (q.v.) and one Elizabeth Lewes were witnesses. He was then of Allhallows, Stainings. He cannot be traced in the parish, but the name, which in his will is Houghton, is also spelt by Henslowe Harton, Horton, Hauton, Hawton, Howghton, Haughtoun, Haulton, and Harvghton, and was common in London. He might be related to a William Houghton, saddler, who held a house in Turnmill Street in 1577 (Baugh, 11), since in 1601 (H. P. 57) Day requested that a sum due to Haughton and himself might be paid to 'Will Hamton sadler'. Englishmen for My Money, or ''A Woman Will Have Her Will. 1598''

S. R. 1601, Aug. 3. 'A comedy of A woman Will haue her Will.' William White (Arber, iii. 190). 1616. English-Men For my Money: or, A pleasant Comedy, called, A Woman will haue her Will. W. White.

1626. As it hath beene diuers times Acted with great applause. I. N., sold by Hugh Perry.