Lawrence Fletcher

Lawrence Fletcher (died 1608) was a Jacobean actor, and man of mystery.^[1][2]

Fletcher was named first on the royal patent of 19 May 1603 that transformed the Lord Chamberlain's Men into the King's Men.^[3] William Shakespeare was second, and Richard Burbage third, and this order was significant, in the highly hierarchical world of the time. Yet Fletcher never appears on the other documents that give later generations our limited knowledge of the King's Men; he doesn't seem to have acted, in the leading acting company of the age. Unlike the eight men whose names follow on the patent, Fletcher was not, or not primarily, a London actor. He had been "comedian to His Majesty" before the Union of Crowns in 1603, when James VI and I was King of Scotland only.

The names of actors on the patent were Fletcher's, then "William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustyne Philipps, John Henings, Henrie Condel, William Sly, Robert Armyn, Richard Cowly, and the rest of their associates". They are permitted "freely to use and exercise the Arte and Faculty of playing Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Morals, Pastoralls, Stageplaies, and such others". The patent specified they would play the Globe Theatre, and elsewhere, whenever the plague subsided.^[4]

Fletcher's inclusion on the 1603 patent may have been diplomatic and bureaucratic, a way of easing and greasing the company's transition from the old regime to the new; or perhaps Fletcher intended to be an active member of the company (their comedian Thomas Pope died in 1603, and Fletcher could have been his replacement), but was prevented by declining health.

Augustine Phillips died in May 1605. He left 20 shillings to his "fellow" Fletcher. This is less than the 30 shillings he left to Shakespeare, Henry Condell, and Christopher Beeston, but the same sum he left to fellow King's Men Robert Armin, Alexander Cooke, Richard Cowley, and Nicholas Tooley. 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.

Fletcher was buried on 12 September 1608, in St. Saviour's Church, Southwark.