Lawrence Fletcher

[3] William Shakespeare was second, and Richard Burbage third, and this order was significant, in the highly hierarchical world of the time.

They are permitted "freely to use and exercise the Arte and Faculty of playing Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Morals, Pastoralls, Stageplaies, and such others".

This seems to suggest that Fletcher was more than a mere name on a document to Phillips, though what more, precisely, is impossible to say, given the limits of the record.

"[5] Fletcher was in Edinburgh at the end of 1599, protected by James VI from sanction by the Kirk and town council.

[6] He was helped by the courtier George Elphinstone who bought timber for the stage, and distributed reward money from the king.