HENSLOWE, Philip, a contemporary of Shakespeare, whose name continues of interest from his intimate association with the history of the theatre during the great dramatist’s career. Originally, it would appear, a dyer and afterwards a starclιmaker, and ready· to turn to any profitable speculation, he probably began his connexion with the stage in 1584 by becoming “joint lessee of the Rose theatre on the Bankside, or of the ground on which it stood.” From 1591 to his death in 1616 he was in theatrical partnership with the more famous Edward Alleyn, who in 1592 married his step-daughter Joan Woodward. In 1613 he was appointed sergeant of the king’s bear-garden, to take charge of a lion and certain other beasts presented by the duke of Savoy. Henslowe’s business diary from 1593 to 1609 has happily been preserved in Alleyn’s College at Dulwich, and, though evidently the work of an ignorant man, it is of prime importance for its miscellaneous store of items in regard to the first appearance of plays, the sums paid to the authors, the theatre receipts, and so on. It was edited for the Shakespeare Society in 1841 by J. Payne Collier, who, however, found that the MS. had suffered considerable mutilation at the hands of miscreant autograph hunters since the time when it was employed by its original discoverer Malone. See Alleyn.