Examination of Sir Gelly Meyrick

In early 1601, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, led a rebellion which was over almost as soon as it began. In the lead-up to the action, the Lord Chamberlain’s players, William Shakespeare’s company, was paid to perform Richard II, in which the king is imprisoned, deposed, and eventually killed by, or at the command of, Henry Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV. Among those examined in the aftermath of the rebellion were Augustine Phillips, a senior member of Shakespeare’s company, and Sir Gelly Meyrick, a participant in the rebellion.

In his examination on February 17, 1600, Sir Gelly Meyrick reported that Lord Mounteagle, Sir Christopher Blount, Sir Charles Percy, Ellis Jones, Edward Bushell, and others, went “over the water” and spoke to some of the Lord Chamberlain’s men at the Globe playhouse, learning that their play was to be “of Harry the iiijth.” More explicitly “the play was of Kyng Harry the iiijth, and of the kyllyng of Kyng Richard the second played by the Lord Chamberlen's players.”

Although scholars have proposed alternative explanations, the combined testimony of Augustine Phillips and Sir Gelly Meyrick suggests that Phillips and his fellow members of the Lord Chamberlain’s men performed William Shakespeare’s Richard II prior to the Essex rebellion.

After his interview, Sir Gelly Meyrick was eventually hanged at Tyburn, while Augustine Phillips was let go without further consequence for himself or his fellow players.