The Player's Boy Summary

Warning: this chapter-by-chapter summary is a "spoiler". Don't read on unless you want to know what happens when!

Chapters

Breeching Scholar
One Word in Secret
The Lated Traveller
The Chimes at Midnight
Wet Sea-Boy
A Great Reckoning in a Little Room
The Gallant, Young and Noble Gentleman
A Poor Player
A Good Sprag Memory
The Youngest of that Name
Well Grac'd Actor
His Hopeful Son
Highways in Summer
Hangman's Hands
Homeward He Did Come

Summary

Summary text copyright Chris Fox, 1999.

Chapter 1: Breeching Scholar

Nicholas Marlow and his friend Adam go home from school for their Sunday off. On their way home in the carrier's cart, they listen to the carrier talk about religion and the state of the world. They come across Nicholas's neighbour, Antony Merrick, on the road, and Nicholas retrieves Antony's cousin's hat from a tree.
(May 1593)

Chapter 2: One Word in Secret

The next day, Nicholas and Adam, chasing Adam's hawk, find themselves in the Merricks' garden, where Nicholas overhears Antony and his cousin talking religion and politics: Antony is Catholic and his cousin Gilly tries to persuade him to join causes with Gilly's master, the Earl of Essex, who secretly opposes the Queen.
(May 1593)

Chapter 3: The Lated Traveller

When Nicholas arrives home, he finds that his brother Geoffrey has a guest: the poet Kit Marlowe, and that Kate, Geoffrey's wife, is put out by this. During dinner, it emerges that Kit is a friend of Sir Walter Ralegh a man hero-worshipped by Nicholas and his schoolfriends. Nicholas causes an argument between Geoffrey and Kate by doing his set exercises for school while listening to Geoffrey and Kit talking. Kit reveals that he is an atheist and a government spy. When Geoffrey mentions that Nicholas has a gift for memorising passages of text after a single reading, Nicholas ends up having to perform this feat for a bet the stake being their home, Trennels, and all its contents. Geoffrey wins the bet, and Nicholas listens to the two men talking late into the night….
(May 1593)

Chapter 4: The Chimes at Midnight

… with the result that he oversleeps the next morning. Since his schoolmaster has threatened that he will never be allowed home for the weekend again if he returns late, he is distraught, and when Geoffrey reveals that he has in any case accepted Kate's argument that Nicholas should stay at school full time during term time, he feels utterly betrayed. Kit offers to give him a pillion ride into Colebridge and on the way they talk about the New World, astronomy and atheism. Kit suggests that Nicholas should come to London with him and promises to wait for him at the bridge at midnight. When Nicholas gets to school, he is whipped for being late and for having done Adam's exercises for him. Adam is expelled. At the lunchbreak, he quotes some of Kit's poetry, and is then overheard quoting Kit's atheist opinions. Threatened with severe but unnamed punishment, Nicholas feels that he has no option but to take up Kit's offer, and meets him at the bridge as arranged.
(May 1593)

Chapter 5: Wet Sea-Boy

The two ride to the coast, and arrange passage to London. Nicholas acts as ship's boy and reveals an eerie talent for raising a wind. They arrive in Deptford.
(May 1593)

Chapter 6: A Great Reckoning in a Little Room

Kit discovers that he is in some danger: he has been instructed to appear daily before the Privy Council. They arrange to stay in a boarding house in Deptford, and for a week or so Nicholas enjoys himself exploring the port while Kit is away every day. Kit gives Nicholas a letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, asking him to see to Nicholas's safety in case the worst happens and Kit is hanged. Finally the threat is lifted, and Kit spends the evening drinking with some friends. They fight over who is to pay the reckoning and Kit is accidentally killed. When they discover that Nicholas has the letter, Kit's friend Robin Poley offers to take him to Southampton. On the way there, he forces Nicholas to swear to spy on Southampton.
(May 1593)

Chapter 7: The Gallant, Young and Noble Gentleman

Poley puts Nicholas over the wall of Drury House, the home of Southampton's friend, the Earl of Essex. In the garden, Nicholas meets Humfrey Danvers, Southampton's page, and then Lord Essex. When he delivers the letter to Lord Southampton, telling him that Kit is dead, he also lets slip the fact that Kit was a government agent, and that he himself has been sworn to spy on the household. He begs Southampton not to keep him in the household, but to send him away. Southampton comes up with a plan, but will not say what it is. Until he can put the plan into action, he gives Nicholas work in the mews, helping his falconer.
(June 1593)

Chapter 8: A Poor Player

Nicholas travels to Titchfield, Southampton's country house, and spends the summer working in the mews. He wonders whether Southampton has forgotten about his plan, until one day they are visited by a travelling player, Will Shakspere. Southampton's plan is that Nicholas should become a player. Will is reluctant to take Nicholas on, because of the hardship of a player's life at the moment: all the London playhouses have been closed, so Will's company is travelling, and many parish councils will not allow them to play. Southampton overcomes this objection by offering Will a purse of money the amount, he says, that he would have given Kit for his last poem.
(June - September 1593)

Chapter 9: A Good Sprag Memory

After some months of travelling round the country, the company hears that the London playhouses have been reopened. Will and Nicholas return to London, where they meet the actor Richard Burbage, who asks Will to join his company. Will agrees, and Nicholas starts learning the actor's trade in earnest. He meets the other players: John Hemings, Henry Condall, Augustine Philips, Tom Pope and Will Kemp; and their boys: Robin Goffe, Sam Gilburne, Pentecost Fisher and James Best. He gradually settles in to his new life, and at Christmas plays a small part at court in front of the Queen.
(September 1593 - December 1594)

Chapter 10: The Youngest of that Name

Nicholas meets Humfrey again, running into him by accident in London. They arrange to meet up weekly if possible. Will's youngest brother Edmund arrives unexpectedly and asks to join the company. He tells Nicholas lots of small details about Will's home life; Nicholas decides not to tell Edmund about his background, despite the awkwardness caused by Edmund's assuming that Nicholas must be Will's illegitimate son.
(February - November 1595)

Chapter 11: Well Grac'd Actor

Shortly before Christmas, Robin gets into a fight with some apprentices and gets a black eye which leaves him unable to play Juliet in their Christmas player at court. Nicholas is his understudy. It is the first leading role he has played and as late as Christmas Eve, he is still finding the part beyond him. He is sure he will fail and miserably decides to leave the company after the performance. Just before going on stage, he sees himself in a mirror, and realises how the audience will see him not as himself playing a role, but as Juliet. He takes courage, and gives the performance of his career.
(December 1595)

Chapter 12: His Hopeful Son

While touring in the summer, the players discuss the possibility of Will's son Hamnet joining the company. Before he can come to a decision about this, Will gets a message from Stratford: Hamnet is ill. Will rides home and shocks Nicholas by not recognising him. The rest of the company continues touring, and eventually arrives in Oxford, where Burbage and Nicholas take pity on some students too poor to risk attending a real performance, and perform a scene from Rome & Juliet for them, while standing on Magdalen Bridge. Burbage compliments Nick on his performance, and they meet Will, who has returned from Stratford. To their shock, he tells them that Hamnet is dead.
(Summer 1596)

Chapter 13: Highways in Summer

For political reasons, the company moves from the Theatre to the Swan. In a fleeting moment of depression, Will considers going home to Stratford to the new house he has bought for his wife and daughters. Lord Southampton joins an expedition against Spain and Humfrey is dismayed that he will have to go too. Nicholas plays truant one afternoon, and is severely scolded by Will. One of their rival companies puts on a play deemed seditious, and all the playhouses are closed down, forcing the company to go on tour earlier than usual. Back in London in the autumn, they find that the Swan has not been licensed to reopen as a playhouse and they have to move to the Curtain. Humfrey returns to London and tells Nicholas of the failure of the Spanish expedition.
(November 1596 - November 1597)

Chapter 14: Hangman's Hands

Nicholas disarms Will Kemp at fencing practice; as a reward and birthday present, Will gives him a sword. Nicholas goes with Edmund to see a hanging at Tyburn: three Papists are to be drawn and quartered. To his horror, one is Antony Merrick. Antony gives a speech from the scaffold which Nicholas vaguely recognises, but it is only when he is on stage that afternoon that he realises that they are his own lines. Hearing about the morning's activities from Edmund, Will wonders if Nicholas has been going to hear mass on Sundays. Nicholas reassures him on this count, but ends up telling him the true story of his background. Will insists that he must go home in the summer to show Geoffrey that he is alive and well.
(May 1598)

Chapter 15: Homeward He Did Come

Having been dropped by Will in Colebridge, Nicholas hitches a lift to Trennels in the carrier's cart, discovering as he does so that he has forgotten to bring his purse with him. When he gets to Trennels, he discovers that Geoffrey and Kate away from home: Kate's mother has just died and they are bringing her father to live at Trennels. Nicholas decides that he couldn't have timed his visit worse, and without giving his real name, leaves to rejoin the company.
(Summer 1598)