The Admiral's Men (also called the Admiral's company, more strictly, the Earl of Nottingham's Men; after 1603, Prince Henry's Men; after 1612, the Elector Palatine's Men or the Palsgrave's Men) was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras. It is generally considered the second most important acting troupe of English Renaissance theatre (after the company of Shakespeare, the Lord Chamberlain's or King's Men). Beginnings They were first known as the Lord Howard's Men, named after their patron Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham. The company played once at Court on December 1576 (the play was called Tooley), again on 17 February 1577 (The Solitary Knight), and a third time the following Christmas season, 5 January 1578 (all dates new style). They toured widely, from Bath to Nottingham, in the years 1577–79. A powerful patron like Howard could make a great difference in a company's fortunes. Though there is little evidence that he was actively concerned with drama, Howard was almost alone among Elizabeth's closest councillors in opposing the Lord Mayor of London's 1584 drive to close the public theatres. The theatres stayed open. When Howard became England's Lord High Admiral in 1585, the group's name was changed to reflect his new title. They performed regularly in the provinces and at Court in the 1585–87 period; but a fatal accident at one of their performances forced them into a temporary retirement. (During a performance in London on 16 November 1587, stage gunfire went wrong, killing a child and a pregnant woman.) But they returned to activity with two performances at Court in the winter of 1588–9, on 29 December and 11 February. Despite the power of their patron, the Admiral's Men were not entirely free of official interference. Both they and the Lord Strange's Men were stopped from playing by the Lord Mayor of London in November 1589; it seems that Edmund Tilney, the Master of the Revels, had taken a dislike to their choice of plays. During this period of difficulty the Admiral's Men moved into James Burbage's The Theatre for a time (November 1590 to May 1591), and there they played Dead Man's Fortune with a young Richard Burbage in the cast – the only time that the later competitors Burbage and Edward Alleyn, the longtime star of the Admiral's, are known to have acted together. If the Admiral's Men were having difficulties