Thomas Pollard
Encyclopedia
Thomas Pollard was an actor in the King's Men
— a prominent comedian in the acting troupe of William Shakespeare
and Richard Burbage
.
Thomas Pollard was christened on 11 December 1597 in Aylesbury
, Buckinghamshire
. His date of death is not known.
specializing in women's roles. He was trained by John Shank
, a noted comic actor; and after he matured and left female roles behind, Pollard acquired his own reputation as a gifted comic performer. His most notable part was the title role in Fletcher's
The Humorous Lieutenant
. He had the comical role of Timentes the cowardly general in Arthur Wilson's
The Swisser
.
He played Silvio in Webster's
The Duchess of Malfi
, in the productions of c. 1614 and c. 1621. He appeared in Shakespeare's
Henry VIII
, probably in the 1628 revival at the Globe Theatre
. Pollard played the role of Pinac in The Wild Goose Chase
in the 1632
revival, and was in a number of other Fletcherian plays, The Lovers' Progress
,The Maid in the Mill
, The Queen of Corinth
, Sir John van Olden Barnavelt
, and The Spanish Curate
.
Pollard acted parts in plays by Philip Massinger
— The Roman Actor
(Aelius Lamia and Stephanus), Believe as You List
(Berecinthius), The Picture (Ubaldo). He acted in works by Ford
— The Laws of Candy
, The Lover's Melancholy
; and Shirley
— The Cardinal
. He "doubled" several small parts in John Clavell
's The Soddered Citizen
(1630).
(The text of Believe as You List draws humor from the fatness of Berecinthius, the character played by Pollard. By 1631, the year the play was acted, Pollard seems to have grown corpulent.)
(1608), prominent members of the company owned shares in the theatres, and so gained additional shares in the theatres' profits, beyond what they earned as actors. They were termed "housekeepers" of the theatres. Over the next generation, actors died and passed their theatre shares to their heirs; their replacements, in the next generation of actors, were cut out of the housekeepers' income (though as sharers in the acting company, they received their own portions of the profits). In 1635, three prominent actors, Pollard, Eliard Swanston
, and Robert Benfield
, petitioned the Lord Chancellor
, Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke
, to be allowed to purchase theatre shares from the present housekeepers — and Pembroke agreed.
Those existing shareholders, principally Cuthbert Burbage
and John Shank, did not want to sell their lucrative shares, however. The dispute generated a body of documents, sometimes called the Sharers' Papers, that reveal valuable information on the theatrical conditions of the Caroline era
. The Sharers' Papers indicate that Pollard had an annual income of £180 at the time, purely as a sharer in the acting company.
. He was one of the ten King's Men who signed the dedication to the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio
of 1647
, and one of the seven who tried to re-activate the company in 1648. He was also one of the performers arrested on 1 January 1649, when soldiers of the Commonwealth regime raided the Cockpit Theatre
and caught actors in the midst of an illegal performance — of Rollo Duke of Normandy
, as chance had it. Pollard was playing the Cook. The actors spent a short time incarcerated in Hatton House, then were released.
The Interregnum
years were rough-and-tumble for unemployed or under-employed actors. In 1655 Theophilus Bird
filed a lawsuit that claimed that Pollard and fellow King's Man Michael Bowyer
, along with "some others," had sold the company's playbooks and its expensive costumes, and owed Bird a share in the proceeds. Bird claimed in his 1655 suit that Pollard was worth £500 when he died; but the date of his death is unknown. James Wright's Historia Histrionica
(1699
) states that Pollard —
King's Men (playing company)
The King's Men was the company of actors to which William Shakespeare belonged through most of his career. Formerly known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it became The King's Men in 1603 when King James ascended the throne and became the company's patron.The...
— a prominent comedian in the acting troupe of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
and Richard Burbage
Richard Burbage
Richard Burbage was an English actor and theatre owner. He was the younger brother of Cuthbert Burbage. They were both actors in drama....
.
Thomas Pollard was christened on 11 December 1597 in Aylesbury
Aylesbury
Aylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire in South East England. However the town also falls into a geographical region known as the South Midlands an area that ecompasses the north of the South East, and the southern extremities of the East Midlands...
, Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
. His date of death is not known.
Career
Pollard starting as a boy playerBoy player
Boy player is a common term for the adolescent males employed by Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for the mainstream companies and performed the female roles, as women did not perform on the English stage in this period...
specializing in women's roles. He was trained by John Shank
John Shank
John Shank was an actor in English Renaissance theatre, a leading comedian in the King's Men during the 1620s and 1630s.-Early career:...
, a noted comic actor; and after he matured and left female roles behind, Pollard acquired his own reputation as a gifted comic performer. His most notable part was the title role in Fletcher's
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
The Humorous Lieutenant
The Humorous Lieutenant
The Humorous Lieutenant, also known as The Noble Enemies or Demetrius and Enanthe, is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Fletcher...
. He had the comical role of Timentes the cowardly general in Arthur Wilson's
Arthur Wilson (17th century)
-Life:Wilson was born in Yarmouth. In the 1620–25 period he served as secretary to Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, and accompanied the Earl on his military campaigns on the Continent. After two years' study at Oxford University , Wilson entered the service of Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of...
The Swisser
The Swisser
The Swisser is a Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Arthur Wilson. It was performed by the King's Men in the Blackfriars Theatre in 1631, and is notable for the light in throws on the workings of the premier acting company of its time....
.
He played Silvio in Webster's
John Webster
John Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates...
The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragic play written by the English dramatist John Webster in 1612–13. It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then before a more general audience at The Globe, in 1613-14...
, in the productions of c. 1614 and c. 1621. He appeared in Shakespeare's
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (play)
The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight is a history play by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, based on the life of Henry VIII of England. An alternative title, All is True, is recorded in contemporary documents, the title Henry VIII not appearing until the play's publication...
, probably in the 1628 revival at the Globe Theatre
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613...
. Pollard played the role of Pinac in The Wild Goose Chase
The Wild Goose Chase
The Wild Goose Chase is a late Jacobean stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher, first published in 1621. It is often classed among Fletcher's most effective and best-constructed plays; Edmund Gosse called it "one of the brightest and most coherent of Fletcher's comedies, a play which it is...
in the 1632
1632 in literature
The year 1632 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*On February 14, Tempe Restored, a masque written by Aurelian Townshend and designed by Inigo Jones, is performed at Whitehall Palace....
revival, and was in a number of other Fletcherian plays, The Lovers' Progress
The Lovers' Progress
The Lovers' Progress, also known as The Wandering Lovers, or Cleander, or Lisander and Calista, is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger...
,The Maid in the Mill
The Maid in the Mill
The Maid in the Mill is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher and William Rowley. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.-Performance:...
, The Queen of Corinth
The Queen of Corinth
The Queen of Corinth is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.-Date:...
, Sir John van Olden Barnavelt
Sir John van Olden Barnavelt
The Tragedy of Sir John van Olden Barnavelt was a Jacobean play written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger in 1619, and produced in the same year by the King's Men at the Globe Theatre...
, and The Spanish Curate
The Spanish Curate
The Spanish Curate is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. It premiered on the stage in 1622, and was first published in 1647.-Date and source:...
.
Pollard acted parts in plays by Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.-Early life:The son of Arthur Massinger or Messenger, he was baptized at St....
— The Roman Actor
The Roman Actor
The Roman Actor is a Caroline era stage play, a tragedy written by Philip Massinger; it was first performed in 1626, and first published in 1629...
(Aelius Lamia and Stephanus), Believe as You List
Believe as You List
Believe as You List is a Caroline era tragedy by Philip Massinger, famous as a case of theatrical censorship.-Censorship:The play originally dealt with the legend that Sebastian of Portugal had survived the battle of Alcácer Quibir, and the efforts of Philip II of Spain to suppress the "false...
(Berecinthius), The Picture (Ubaldo). He acted in works by Ford
John Ford (dramatist)
John Ford was an English Jacobean and Caroline playwright and poet born in Ilsington in Devon in 1586.-Life and work:...
— The Laws of Candy
The Laws of Candy
The Laws of Candy is a Jacobean stage play, a tragicomedy that is significant principally because of the question of its authorship.-Date:...
, The Lover's Melancholy
The Lover's Melancholy
The Lover's Melancholy is an early Caroline era stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Ford. While the dating of the works in Ford's canon is very uncertain, this play has sometimes been regarded as "Ford's first unaided drama," an anticipation of what would follow through the remainder of his...
; and Shirley
James Shirley
James Shirley was an English dramatist.He belonged to the great period of English dramatic literature, but, in Lamb's words, he "claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so much for any transcendent genius in himself, as that he was the last of a great race, all of whom spoke nearly...
— The Cardinal
The Cardinal (play)
The Cardinal is a Caroline era stage play, a tragedy by James Shirley. It was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on November 25, 1641, and first published in 1653. Nineteenth-century critics like Edmund Gosse, and twentieth-century critics like Fredson Bowers,...
. He "doubled" several small parts in John Clavell
John Clavell
John Clavell was a highwayman, author, lawyer, and doctor.He is known for his poem A Recantation of an Ill Led Life, and his play The Soddered Citizen...
's The Soddered Citizen
The Soddered Citizen
The Soddered Citizen is a Caroline era stage play, a city comedy now attributed to John Clavell. The play was lost for three centuries; the sole surviving manuscript was rediscovered and published in the twentieth century....
(1630).
(The text of Believe as You List draws humor from the fatness of Berecinthius, the character played by Pollard. By 1631, the year the play was acted, Pollard seems to have grown corpulent.)
Controversy
Pollard was intimately involved in a major controversy that marked the King's Men company in the 1630s. When the troupe had acquired its two theatres, the Globe (1598–99) and the BlackfriarsBlackfriars Theatre
Blackfriars Theatre was the name of a theatre in the Blackfriars district of the City of London during the Renaissance. The theatre began as a venue for child actors associated with the Queen's chapel choirs; in this function, the theatre hosted some of the most innovative drama of Elizabeth and...
(1608), prominent members of the company owned shares in the theatres, and so gained additional shares in the theatres' profits, beyond what they earned as actors. They were termed "housekeepers" of the theatres. Over the next generation, actors died and passed their theatre shares to their heirs; their replacements, in the next generation of actors, were cut out of the housekeepers' income (though as sharers in the acting company, they received their own portions of the profits). In 1635, three prominent actors, Pollard, Eliard Swanston
Eliard Swanston
Eliard Swanston , alternatively spelled Heliard, Hilliard, Elyard, Ellyardt, Ellyaerdt, and Eyloerdt, was an English actor in the Caroline era. He became a leading man in the King's Men, the company of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage, in the final phase of its existence.-Career:Swanston...
, and Robert Benfield
Robert Benfield
Robert Benfield was a seventeenth-century actor, noted for his longtime membership in the King's Men in the years and decades after William Shakespeare's retirement and death.Nothing is known of Benfield's early life...
, petitioned the Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
, Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke
Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke
Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke and 1st Earl of Montgomery KG was an English courtier and politician active during the reigns of James I and Charles I...
, to be allowed to purchase theatre shares from the present housekeepers — and Pembroke agreed.
Those existing shareholders, principally Cuthbert Burbage
Cuthbert Burbage
Cuthbert Burbage was an English theatrical figure, son of impresario James Burbage and elder brother of famous actor Richard Burbage...
and John Shank, did not want to sell their lucrative shares, however. The dispute generated a body of documents, sometimes called the Sharers' Papers, that reveal valuable information on the theatrical conditions of the Caroline era
Caroline era
The Caroline era refers to the era in English and Scottish history during the Stuart period that coincided with the reign of Charles I , Carolus being Latin for Charles...
. The Sharers' Papers indicate that Pollard had an annual income of £180 at the time, purely as a sharer in the acting company.
Later years
Pollard continued with the company even after the closing of the London theatres in September 1642, at the start of the English Civil WarEnglish Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
. He was one of the ten King's Men who signed the dedication to the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio
Beaumont and Fletcher folios
The Beaumont and Fletcher folios were two large folio collections of the stage plays of John Fletcher and his collaborators. The first was issued in 1647, and the second in 1679. The two collections were important in preserving many works of English Renaissance drama.-The first folio, 1647:The 1647...
of 1647
1647 in literature
The year 1647 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:* Thomas Hobbes becomes tutor to the future Charles II of England.* Plagiarist Robert Baron publishes his Deorum Dona, a masque, and Gripus and Hegio, a pastoral, which draw heavily on the poems of Edmund Waller and John Webster's...
, and one of the seven who tried to re-activate the company in 1648. He was also one of the performers arrested on 1 January 1649, when soldiers of the Commonwealth regime raided the Cockpit Theatre
Cockpit Theatre
The Cockpit was a theatre in London, operating from 1616 to around 1665. It was the first theatre to be located near Drury Lane. After damage in 1617, it was christened The Phoenix....
and caught actors in the midst of an illegal performance — of Rollo Duke of Normandy
Rollo Duke of Normandy
Rollo Duke of Normandy, also known as The Bloody Brother, is a play written in collaboration by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman. Scholars have disputed almost everything about the play; but it was probably written sometime in the 1612–24 era and later revised,...
, as chance had it. Pollard was playing the Cook. The actors spent a short time incarcerated in Hatton House, then were released.
The Interregnum
English Interregnum
The English Interregnum was the period of parliamentary and military rule by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell under the Commonwealth of England after the English Civil War...
years were rough-and-tumble for unemployed or under-employed actors. In 1655 Theophilus Bird
Theophilus Bird
Theophilus Bird, or Bourne, was a seventeenth-century English actor. Bird began his stage career in the Stuart era of English Renaissance theatre, and ended it in the Restoration period; he was one of the relatively few actors who managed to resume their careers after the eighteen-year enforced...
filed a lawsuit that claimed that Pollard and fellow King's Man Michael Bowyer
Michael Bowyer
Michael Bowyer was an actor in English Renaissance theatre in the Jacobean and Caroline eras. He spent most of his maturity with Queen Henrietta's Men, but finished his career with the King's Men...
, along with "some others," had sold the company's playbooks and its expensive costumes, and owed Bird a share in the proceeds. Bird claimed in his 1655 suit that Pollard was worth £500 when he died; but the date of his death is unknown. James Wright's Historia Histrionica
Historia Histrionica
Historia Histrionica is a 1699 literary work by James Wright , on the subject of theatre in England in the seventeenth century. It is an essential resource for information on the actors and theatrical life of the period, providing data available nowhere else.The work's full title is Historia...
(1699
1699 in literature
The year 1699 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*Jonathan Swift is out of work after the death of his employer, Sir William Temple.*Joseph Addison receives a pension of £300 to enable him to travel abroad.-New books:...
) states that Pollard —
-
- "Lived Single, and Had a Competent Estate; Retired to some relations he had in the Country, and there ended his Life."