[Footnote 259: In a marginal gloss to _Nashes Lenten Stuffe_ (1599), ed. McKerrow, III, 154, Nashe says: "I having begun but the induction and first act of it, the other four acts without my consent or the best guess of my drift or scope, by the players were supplied, which bred both their trouble and mine too."] Some of these events are referred to in the following letter, addressed by the Privy Council "to Richard Topclyfe, Thomas Fowler, and Richard Skevington, esquires, Doctor Fletcher, and Mr. Wilbraham": Upon information given us of a lewd play that was played in one of the playhouses on the Bankside, containing very seditious and slanderous matter, we caused some of the players [Robert Shaw, Gabriel Spencer, and Ben Jonson[260]] to be apprehended and committed to prison, whereof one of them [Ben Jonson] was not only an actor but a maker of part of the said play. Forasmuch as it is thought meet that the rest of the players or actors in that matter shall be apprehended to receive such punishment as their lewd and mutinous behaviour doth deserve, these shall be therefore to require you to examine those of the players that are committed (whose names are known to you, Mr. Topclyfe), what is become of the rest of their fellows that either had their parts in the devising of that seditious matter, or that were actors or players in the same, what copies they have given forth[261] of the said play, and to whom, and such other points as you shall think meet to be demanded of them, wherein you shall require them to deal truly, as they will look to receive any favour. We pray you also to peruse such papers as were found in Nashe his lodgings, which Ferrys, a messenger of the Chamber, shall deliver unto you, and to certify us the examinations you take.[262] [Footnote 260: The identity of the three players is revealed in an order of the Privy Council dated October 8, 1597: "A warrant to the Keeper of the Marshalsea to release Gabriel Spencer and Robert Shaw, stage-players, out of prison, who were of late committed to his custody. The like warrant for the releasing of Benjamin Jonson." (Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_, XXVIII, 33.)] [Footnote 261: Such a copy was formerly preserved in a volume of miscellaneous manuscripts at Alnwick Castle, but has not come down to modern times. See F.J. Burgoyne, _Northumberland Manuscripts_ (London, 1904).] [Footnote 262: Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_, XXVII, 338.]