Philip Henslowe Henslowe, Philip Author Mikayla Kardux Supervising Editor Melissa Walter Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globablink Research Internship

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

Intellectual copyright in this entry is held by Kate McPherson on behalf of the contributors. Copyright on the TEI-XML markup is held by the University of Victoria on behalf of the LEMDO Team. The content and TEI-XML markup in this file are licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license. This file is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and /or data; (2) this availability statement must remain in the file; (3) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (4) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Mikayla Kardux, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Daily Life Animal Baiting Bear Gardens Courtiers Diaries London Published file. Updated metadata proofed Review of article finished. updated author respStmt. Created File. Michael Best Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Navarra Houldin Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

 Mikayla Kardux Mikayla Kardux

Mikayla Kardux was a student at the University of Fraser Valley.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 Melissa Walter Melissa Walter

Melissa Walter is Associate Professor of English at the University of the Fraser Valley. Her research focuses on early modern English drama and English and European prose fiction. She is the author of The Italian Novella and Shakespeare’s Comic Heroines (U of Toronto, 2019), and co-editor, with Dennis Britton, of Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Authors, Audiences, Digital Technologies (Routledge, 2018). Her work on English theatre and the European novella has appeared in several edited collections, including Transnational Exchange in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2008), and Transnational Mobility in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2012). She has also written about Translation and Identity in the Dialogues in English and Malaiane Languages (Indographies, ed. Jonathan Gil Harris. Palgrave 2012). At the University of the Fraser Valley, she is a lead coordinator of UFV’s Shakespeare and Reconciliation Garden.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/

Philip Henslowe was born in the 1550s and became a prominent figure in London’s theatre industry during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. As a shrewd businessman, Henslowe was well known in early modern London. Together with his son-in-law, Edward Alleyn, Henslowe created a successful artistic enterprise by finding unusual ways to fund various theatre companies and playhouses. The accounts of his entrepreneurial activities are recorded in the 238 pages of his diary, a document that provides scholars with valuable information about London’s theatre industry. Henslowe remained actively involved in the theatre until his death in January 1616.

Henslowe’s Family

Henslowe married his former employers’ widow, Agnes Woodward, in 1579 and became the stepfather of two daughters from her previous marriage. Agnes was occasionally mentioned in Henslowe’s diary, and she managed his large fortune after his death. Agnes’s daughter Joan married Edward Alleyn, one of the leading actors of the period, and who became business partners Philip Henslowe. Alleyn rose to fame as a prominent actor in the early theatres in London as he played lead roles in popular plays by Christopher Marlowe such as Tamburlaine in Tamburlaine the Great and Dr. Faustus in The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus.

Henslowe’s Career

Henslowe’s professional experience was not limited to the theatre industry. In his early career, Henslowe worked as a dyer and used the money he made for property investments and eventually established his first theatre, the Rose. Over time, Henslowe’s involvement in the theatre industry and his entrepreneurial success in his partnership with Edward Alleyn cemented his reputation. Henslowe and Alleyn were involved in the theatre in various ways including building and owning several prominent playhouses including The Rose, The Fortune, and The Hope financing at least six of the leading playing companies in London managing and financing the Admiral’s Men who performed exclusively in the Rose

Within this business partnership, the financial management rested on Henslowe while Alleyn oversaw the management of the theatre and production of plays. Henslowe and Alleyn created their success by employing various ways of generating profit to supplement the funds they earned from performing plays, such as pawn broking, property investments, and animal baiting.

The combination of Henslowe’s involvement in theatre and animal baiting, the two major forms of public entertainment in early modern London, demonstrates his success as an entrepreneur. Several of the playhouses he built were intended for dual-purpose as animal baiting houses and playhouses. The contract for the building of the Fortune Theatre indicated that the theatre was to be a Plaiehouse fitt & convenient in all thinges, bothe for players to playe in, and for the game of Beares and Bulls to be bayted in the same. This interchangeability was successful because when one form of entertainment was not generating enough revenue, the theatre could be converted for its other use.

Henslowe’s Reputation

Undeniably, Philip Henslowe was a successful businessman and entrepreneur. However, many scholars today portray Henslowe as a ruthless capitalist who exploited people for his financial gain. During his time, Henslowe’s reputation varied. The theatre industry was often associated with prostitution during its early years, so those involved with the theatre, such as Henslowe, were also associated with immorality. However, Henslowe’s decision to establish the Rose theatre in the Bankside Stewes, a region of London known for prostitution, and to purchase two inns known to be brothels, the Little Rose and the Unicorn, further confirmed the scandalous reputation of the theatre.

However, aside from his business dealings, Henslowe was also tied to the Elizabethan court where he served as a minor courtier, a Gentleman Sewer server of the Bedchamber, a position of minor prestige. Henslowe and Alleyn also lent money to the Crown, which allowed them to maintain a good relationship with the royal court and protect their business ventures. Henslowe’s relationship to the Crown implies a relatively high social standing for a commoner.

Henslowe’s Diary

Philip Henslowe is best known for his diary, a day to day record that includes valuable information about the theatre industry in early modern London as well as Henslowe’s various business dealings. Like many other scholars, Jennifer Lo asserts that the diary is the single greatest illuminator of the history of English Renaissance theatre as it is one of the few surviving texts about the early modern theatre industry. Some of the notable features of the diary are its chaotic organization, symbols and abbreviations, and random entries including: records of payments to dramatists, loans to authors and actors, disbursements for costumes and playhouse construction, payments to the Master of the Revels, daily performance receipts for the Rose Playhouse (Henslowe’s Diary 1591–1609).

The seemingly unprofessional compilation and haphazard formatting of the diary have led some scholars to question the validity of the diary as a source. However, when the diary is viewed as a personal manuscript notebook instead of a professional account book, its dynamic nature further illuminates the early theatre industry and Henslowe’s life.

Key Print Sources Cerasano, S. P. Cheerful Givers: Henslowe, Alleyn, and the 1612 Loan Book to the Crown. Shakespeare Studies, vol. 28, Jan. 2000, pp. 215–220. Cerasano, S. P. Going Down the Drain in 1616: Widow Henslowe and the Sewer Commission. Shakespeare Studies. vol. 32, Jan. 2004, pp. 83–98. Foakes, R.A. and R.T. Rickert. Henslowe’s Diary. Cambridge University Press, 1961; rpt 2002.
Key Online Sources Best, Michael. Philip Henslowe and the Admiral’s Men. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/stage/acting/henslowe.html#brothels. Accessed 11 Jan. 2023. Bromberg, Murray. The Reputation of Philip Henslowe. Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 1, no. 3, 1950, pp. 135–39, https://doi.org/10.2307/2866420. Cerasano, S. P. Henslowe’s <soCalled>Curious</soCalled> Diary. Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, vol. 17, Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp DBA Associated University Presses, 2005, pp. 72–85, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24322721. Cerasano, S. R. The Geography of Henslowe’s Diary. Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 3, 2005, pp. 328–353, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3844083. Gurr, Andrew. Bears and Players: Philip Henslowe’s Double Acts. Shakespeare Bulletin, vol. 22, no. 4, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, pp. 31–41, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26349162. The Henslowe-Alleyn Digitization Project, King’s Digital Lab, 2023. https://henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/. Korda, Natasha. Household Property/Stage Property: Henslowe as Pawnbroker. Theatre Journal, vol. 48, no. 2, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, pp. 185–195, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3208866. Lenz, Joseph. Base Trade: Theater as Prostitution. ELH, vol. 60, no. 4, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, pp. 833–855, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2873319. Lo, Jennifer. Henslowe’s Diary. The Map of Early Modern London, edited by Janelle Jenstad, University of Victoria, 30 Jun. 2021, https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/HENS2.htm. Mabillard, Amanda. The Life of Shakespearean Actor Edward Alleyn. Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2001, https://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/edwardalleyn.html.