19 Facts About Robert Armin

Robert Armin became the leading comedy actor with the troupe associated with William Shakespeare following the departure of Will Kempe around 1600.

Robert Armin changed the part of the clown or fool from the rustic servingman turned comedian to that of a high-comedy domestic wit.

Robert Armin was one of three children born to John Armyn II of King's Lynn, a successful tailor and friend to John Lonyson, a goldsmith of King's Lynn.

Robert Armin's brother, John Armyn III, was a merchant tailor in London.

Robert Armin did not take up his father's craft; instead, his father apprenticed him to Lonyson in the Goldsmiths' Company in 1581.

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Frustrated by the man's refusal to pay, Robert Armin wrote verses in chalk on the wall; Tarlton noticed and, approving their wit, wrote an answer in which he expressed a desire to take Robert Armin as his apprentice.

At some point in the 1590s, Robert Armin joined a company of players patronised by William Brydges, 4th Baron Chandos.

Robert Armin was a tailor's son, who paralleled in the Italian tailor's apprentice, and the ruby ring of the play's lore parallels the goldsmith apprentice.

Sutcliffe argues that Robert Armin wrote a pamphlet published in 1599, A Pil to Purge Melancholie, on the grounds that it was published by the same press, mentions a clown with Robert Armin's nickname, and contains verbal echoes of Two Maids of More-clacke.

Timing of Robert Armin's joining the Chamberlain's Men is as mysterious as its occasion.

Robert Armin is generally credited with all the "licensed fools" in the repertory of the Chamberlain's and King's Men: Touchstone in As You Like It, Feste in Twelfth Night, the Fool in King Lear, Lavatch in All's Well That Ends Well, and perhaps Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, the Porter in Macbeth, the Fool in Timon of Athens, and Autolycus in The Winter's Tale.

Feste was almost certainly written for Robert Armin, as he is a scholar, a singer, and a wit.

An alternative suggestion, however, is that Iago was originally acted by John Lowin, with Robert Armin instead taking the smaller part of Othello's servant.

Robert Armin is presumed to have been the clown in George Wilkins's The Miseries of Enforced Marriage.

Robert Armin is not named in the cast list for Jonson's Catiline, and other evidence suggests that he retired in 1609 or 1610.

Robert Armin explored every aspect of the clown, from the natural idiot to the philosopher-fool; from serving man to retained jester.

When Robert Armin replaced Kemp in the Chamberlain's Men, it was considered the "taming of the clown".

Robert Armin never stops being a fool to save himself; he never tries to do anything but anger his master, Sir William.

Robert Armin is a significant character in Gary Blackwood's historical fiction The Shakespeare Stealer.