Upon its completion the new building was occupied by the Admiral's Men, for whom it had been erected. This troupe of players, long famous under the leadership of Edward Alleyn, was now one of the two companies authorized by the Privy Council, and the chief rival of the Chamberlain's Men at the Globe. Henslowe was managing their affairs, and numerous poets were writing plays for them. They continued to act at the Fortune under the name, "The Admiral's Men," until May 5, 1603, when, as Henslowe put it, they "left off play now at the King's coming."[451] [Footnote 451: Greg, _Henslowe's Diary_, I, 174.] After a short interruption on account of the plague, during a part of which time they traveled in the provinces, the Admiral's Men were taken under the patronage of the youthful Henry, Prince of Wales, and in the early spring of 1604 they resumed playing at the Fortune under their new name, "The Prince's Servants." [Illustration: EDWARD ALLEYN (Reproduced by permission from a painting in the Dulwich Picture Gallery; photograph by Emery Walker, Ltd.)] For a time all went well. But from July, 1607, until December, 1609, the plague was severe in London, and acting was seriously interrupted. During this long period of hardship for the players, Henslowe and Alleyn seem to have made an attempt to hold the troupe together by admitting its chief members to a partnership in the building, just as the Burbages had formerly admitted their chief players to a partnership in the Globe. At this time there were in the troupe eight sharers, or chief actors.[452] Henslowe and Alleyn, it seems, proposed to allot to these eight actors one-fourth of the Fortune property. In other words, according to this scheme, there were to be thirty-two sharers in the new Fortune organization, Alleyn and Henslowe together holding three-fourths of the stock, or twelve shares each, and the eight actors together holding one-fourth of the stock, or one share each. A document was actually drawn up by Henslowe and Alleyn, with the name of the leader of the Fortune troupe, Thomas Downton, inserted;[453] but since the document was not executed, the scheme, it is to be presumed, was unsuccessful--at least, we hear nothing further about it.[454] [Footnote 452: See the Company's Patent of 1606, in The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 268.] [Footnote 453: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 13.] [Footnote 454: For an ordinance concerning "lewd jiggs" at the Fortune in 1612, see _Middlesex County Records_, II, 83.] On November 6, 1612, the death of the young Prince of Wales left the company without a "service." On January 4, 1613, however, a new patent was issued to the players, placing them under the protection of the Palsgrave, or Elector Palatine, after which date they are known as "The Palsgrave's Men."