THE RESEARCH ON which this chapter is based originated in a simple question: “Did Shakespeare's company ever go to Hull?” As it turned out, the question was far from simple to answer, and required a widening of perspective to take in the whole of the East Riding in the attempt to address it—which is what this chapter aims to do. More correctly, Hull is Kingston upon Hull, so named after King Edward I purchased the small port of Wyke upon Hull, standing at the point where the River Hull flows into the River Humber, from Meaux Abbey in 1293 and developed it as a royal supply base. “Shakespeare's company” covers both the Chamberlain's Men (1597–1603) and the King's Men from 1603. The question arose from a hint I read, without any reference to a source, that the company had at some point in its existence travelled to Hull, and had either performed there or been turned away. Old histories of Hull contain several unsupported claims for which no evidence can be found, for example that there was a theatre in Whitefriargate in the sixteenth century. But on the face of it, the claim that the Chamberlain’s/King's Men had at least attempted to perform in Hull seemed plausible enough: it was a big and important port through which a great volume of goods was shipped to continental Europe as well as to other parts of Britain by coastal and inland routes. Its size and importance would be likely to attract entertainers in search of large and varied audiences.

Extensive searches through printed sources and surviving Hull town manuscripts, however, proved fruitless: not only was there no evidence for any visit from the Chamberlain's or King's Men, there was very little for any kind of performance rewarded, or indeed recorded, by the town council of Hull in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. There was a band of town waits, recorded over a long period, who were regularly paid and issued with livery chains, badges, and coats, but no surviving records kept by the council record visits (rewarded or otherwise) by companies of travelling players.