vii. The Earl of Lincoln’s (Lord Clinton’s) Men

Edward Fiennes de Clinton; s. of Thomas, 8th Lord Clinton and Saye, nat. 1512; m. (1) Elizabeth Lady Talboys, d. of Sir John Blount, 1534, (2) Ursula, d. of William Lord Stourton, c. 1540, (3) Elizabeth Lady Browne, ‘the fair Geraldine,’ d. of Gerald, 9th Earl of Kildare, c. 1552; succ. as 9th Baron, 1517; Lord High Admiral, 1550–3, and again 13 Feb. 1558; 1st Earl of Lincoln, 4 May 1572; ambassador to France, 1572; Lord Steward, 1581–5; ob. 16 Jan. 1585.

Henry Fiennes de Clinton, s. of Edward and Ursula; nat. c. 1541; m. (1) Catharine, d. of Francis, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon, Feb. 1557, (2) Elizabeth, d. of Sir Richard Morison and wid. of William Norreys, after 1579; Kt. 29 Sept. 1553; succ. as 2nd Earl, 16 Jan. 1585; ob. 29 Sept. 1616.

Players serving the Lord Admiral were at Winchester in 1566–7. A company under the name of the Earl of Lincoln and led by Laurence Dutton played at Court during the Christmas of 1572–3, and a company under that of Lord Clinton, and also led by Dutton, in Herpetulus the Blue Knight and Perobia on 3 January 1574, and on 27 December 1574 and 2 January 1575. For 1574–5 they rehearsed three plays, one of which was Pretestus. Probably these are the same company transferred by the Lord Admiral to his son. Dutton was with Sir Robert Lane’s men in 1571–2 and with the Earl of Warwick’s in 1575–6. The whole company may have taken service with Lincoln instead of Lane as a result of the statute of 1572 (App. D, No. xxiv), but it does not seem to have been altogether absorbed in Warwick’s, as Lord Clinton’s men are found at Southampton on 24 June 1577, when they were six in number, at Bristol in July, and at Coventry in 1576–7. A later company under the name of the Earl of Lincoln has a purely provincial record in 1599–1604. There is an isolated notice at Norwich in 1608–9.