Shakespearean Playhouses
by Joseph Quincy Adams · English · Gutenberg #22397 · 754,972 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Shakespearean Playhouses
Author: Joseph Quincy Adams
Release date: August 25, 2007 [eBook #22397]
Most recently updated: January 2, 2021
Language: English
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Transcriber's Notes:
The original book cites Holland's _Her[Greek: o]ologia_ in several
places, but consistently misspells it _Hero[Greek: o]logia_. This
has been corrected based on the image of the original title page
of _Her[Greek: o]ologia_ at the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov.
The original book occasionally uses a numeral or letter enclosed
in square brackets. In this e-book, these have been changed to
curly brackets to avoid confusion with footnote markers.
SHAKESPEAREAN PLAYHOUSES
A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration
by
JOSEPH QUINCY ADAMS
Cornell University
[Illustration]
Gloucester, Mass.
Peter Smith
1960
Copyright, 1917, by
Joseph Quincy Adams
Reprinted, 1960,
by Permission of
Houghton Mifflin Co.
[Illustration: MAP OF LONDON SHOWING THE PLAYHOUSES
BLACKFRIARS, (FIRST) 1576-1584.
BLACKFRIARS, (SECOND) 1596-1655.
CURTAIN, 1577-after 1627.
FORTUNE, (FIRST) 1600-1621.
FORTUNE, (SECOND) 1623-1661.
GLOBE, (FIRST) 1599-1613.
GLOBE, (SECOND) 1614-1645.
HOPE, 1613-after 1682.
PHOENIX OR COCKPIT, 1617-after 1664.
RED BULL, about 1605-after 1663.
ROSE, 1587-1605.
SALISBURY COURT, 1629-1666.
SWAN, 1595-after 1632.
THEATRE, 1576-1598.
WHITEFRIARS, about 1605-1614(?).]
TO
LANE COOPER
IN GRATITUDE AND ESTEEM
PREFACE
The method of dramatic representation in the time of Shakespeare has
long received close study. Among those who have more recently devoted
their energies to the subject may be mentioned W.J. Lawrence, T.S.
Graves, G.F. Reynolds, V.E. Albright, A.H. Thorndike, and B.
Neuendorff, each of whom has embodied the results of his
investigations in one or more noteworthy volumes. But the history of
the playhouses themselves, a topic equally important, has not hitherto
been attempted. If we omit the brief notices of the theatres in Edmond
Malone's _The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare_ (1790) and John
Payne Collier's _The History of English Dramatic Poetry_ (1831), the
sole book dealing even in part with the topic is T.F. Ordish's _The
Early London Theatres in the Fields_. This book, however, though good
for its time, was written a quarter of a century ago, before most of
the documents relating to early theatrical history were discovered,
and it discusses only six playhouses. The present volume takes
advantage of all the materials made available by the industry of later
scholars, and records the history of seventeen regular, and five
temporary or projected, theatres. The book is throughout the result of
a first-hand examination of original sources, and represents an
independent interpretation of the historical evidences. As a
consequence of this, as well as of a comparison (now for the first
time possible) of the detailed records of the several playhouses, many
conclusions long held by scholars have been set aside. I have made no
systematic attempt to point out the cases in which I depart from
previously accepted opinions, for the scholar will discover them for
himself; but I believe I have never thus departed without being aware
of it, and without having carefully weighed the entire evidence.
Sometimes the evidence has been too voluminous or complex for detailed
presentation; in these instances I have had to content myself with
reference by footnotes to the more significant documents bearing on
the point.
In a task involving so many details I cannot hope to have escaped
errors--errors due not only to oversight, but also to the limitations
of my knowledge or to mistaken interpretation. For such I can offer no
excuse, though I may request from my readers the same degree of
tolerance which I have tried to show other laborers in the field. In
reproducing old documents I have as a rule modernized the spelling and
the punctuation, for in a work of this character there seems to be no
advantage in preserving the accidents and perversities of early
scribes and printers. I have also consistently altered the dates when
the Old Style conflicted with our present usage.
I desire especially to record my indebtedness to the researches of
Professor C.W. Wallace, the extent of whose services to the study of
the Tudor-Stuart drama has not yet been generally realized, and has
sometimes been grudgingly acknowledged; and to the labors of Mr. E.K.
Chambers and Mr. W.W. Greg, who, in the _Collections_ of The Malone
Society, and elsewhere, have rendered accessible a wealth of important
material dealing with the early history of the stage.
Finally, I desire to express my gratitude to Mr. Hamilton Bell and the
editor of _The Architectural Record_ for permission to reproduce the
illustration and description of Inigo Jones's plan of the Cockpit; to
the Governors of Dulwich College for permission to reproduce three
portraits from the Dulwich Picture Gallery, one of which, that of Joan
Alleyn, has not previously been reproduced; to Mr. C.W. Redwood,
formerly technical artist at Cornell University, for expert assistance
in making the large map of London showing the sites of the playhouses,
and for other help generously rendered; and to my colleagues,
Professor Lane Cooper and Professor Clark S. Northup, for their
kindness in reading the proofs.
JOSEPH QUINCY ADAMS
ITHACA, NEW YORK
CONTENTS
I. THE INN-YARDS 1
II. THE HOSTILITY OF THE CITY 18
III. THE THEATRE 27
IV. THE CURTAIN 75
V. THE FIRST BLACKFRIARS 91
VI. ST. PAUL'S 111
VII. THE BANKSIDE AND THE BEAR GARDEN 119
VIII. NEWINGTON BUTTS 134
IX. THE ROSE 142
X. THE SWAN 161
XI. THE SECOND BLACKFRIARS 182
XII. THE GLOBE 234
XIII. THE FORTUNE 267
XIV. THE RED BULL 294
XV. WHITEFRIARS 310
XVI. THE HOPE 324
XVII. ROSSETER'S BLACKFRIARS, OR PORTER'S HALL 342
XVIII. THE PHOENIX, OR COCKPIT IN DRURY LANE 348
XIX. SALISBURY COURT 368
XX. THE COCKPIT-IN-COURT, OR THEATRE ROYAL AT WHITEHALL 384
XXI. MISCELLANEOUS: WOLF'S THEATRE IN NIGHTINGALE LANE;
THE PROJECTED "AMPHITHEATRE"; OGILBY'S DUBLIN THEATRE;
THE FRENCH PLAYERS' TEMPORARY THEATRE IN DRURY LANE;
DAVENANT'S PROJECTED THEATRE IN FLEET STREET 410
BIBLIOGRAPHY 433
MAPS AND VIEWS OF LONDON 457
INDEX 461
ILLUSTRATIONS
MAP OF LONDON SHOWING THE PLAYHOUSES _Frontispiece_
AN INN-YARD 4
MAP OF LONDON SHOWING THE INN-PLAYHOUSES 9
THE SITE OF THE FIRST PLAYHOUSES 27
THE SITE OF THE FIRST PLAYHOUSES 31
A PLAN OF BURBAGE'S HOLYWELL PROPERTY 33
THE SITE OF THE CURTAIN PLAYHOUSE 79
BLACKFRIARS MONASTERY 93
THE SITE OF THE TWO BLACKFRIARS PLAYHOUSES 94
A PLAN OF FARRANT'S PLAYHOUSE 97
THE BANKSIDE 120
THE BANKSIDE 121
THE BEAR- AND BULL-BAITING RINGS 123
THE BEAR GARDEN 127
THE BEAR GARDEN AND THE ROSE 147
THE BEAR GARDEN AND THE ROSE 149
JOAN WOODWARD ALLEYN 152
THE MANOR OF PARIS GARDEN AND THE SWAN PLAYHOUSE 163
THE SWAN PLAYHOUSE 165
THE INTERIOR OF THE SWAN PLAYHOUSE 169
PLAN ILLUSTRATING THE SECOND BLACKFRIARS PLAYHOUSE 187
REMAINS OF BLACKFRIARS 196
RICHARD BURBAGE 234
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 238
A PLAN OF THE GLOBE PROPERTY 242
THE BEAR GARDEN, THE ROSE, AND THE FIRST GLOBE 245
THE BEAR GARDEN, THE ROSE, AND THE FIRST GLOBE 246
THE FIRST GLOBE 248
THE FIRST GLOBE 253
MERIAN'S VIEW OF LONDON 256
THE SECOND GLOBE 260
THE TRADITIONAL SITE OF THE GLOBE 262
THE SITE OF THE FORTUNE PLAYHOUSE 270
THE FORTUNE PLAYHOUSE? 278
EDWARD ALLEYN 282
THE SITE OF THE RED BULL PLAYHOUSE 294
A PLAN OF WHITEFRIARS 312
MICHAEL DRAYTON 314
THE SITES OF THE WHITEFRIARS AND THE SALISBURY COURT PLAYHOUSES 318
THE HOPE PLAYHOUSE, OR SECOND BEAR GARDEN 326
THE HOPE PLAYHOUSE, OR SECOND BEAR GARDEN 331
THE SITE OF THE COCKPIT IN DRURY LANE 350
A PLAN OF THE SALISBURY COURT PROPERTY 371
THE COCKPIT AT WHITEHALL 390
INIGO JONES'S PLANS FOR THE COCKPIT-IN-COURT 396
FISHER'S SURVEY OF WHITEHALL SHOWING THE COCKPIT-IN-COURT 398
THE THEATRO OLYMPICO AT VICENZA 399
THE COCKPIT-IN-COURT 407
SHAKESPEAREAN PLAYHOUSES
CHAPTER I
THE INN-YARDS
Before the building of regular playhouses the itinerant troupes of
actors were accustomed, except when received into private homes, to
give their performances in any place that chance provided, such as
open street-squares, barns, town-halls, moot-courts, schoolhouses,
churches, and--most frequently of all, perhaps--the yards of inns.
These yards, especially those of carriers' inns, were admirably suited
to dramatic representations, consisting as they did of a large open
court surrounded by two or more galleries. Many examples of such
inn-yards are still to be seen in various parts of England; a picture
of the famous White Hart, in Southwark, is given opposite page 4 by
way of illustration. In the yard a temporary platform--a few boards,
it may be, set on barrel-heads[1]--could be erected for a stage; in
the adjacent stables a dressing-room could be provided for the actors;
the rabble--always the larger and more enthusiastic part of the
audience--could be accommodated with standing-room about the stage;
while the more aristocratic members of the audience could be
comfortably seated in the galleries overhead. Thus a ready-made and
very serviceable theatre was always at the command of the players; and
it seems to have been frequently made use of from the very beginning
of professionalism in acting.
[Footnote 1: "Thou shalt not need to travel with thy pumps full of
gravel any more, after a blind jade and a hamper, and stalk upon
boards and barrel-heads." (_Poetaster_, III, i.)]
One of the earliest extant moralities, _Mankind_, acted by strollers
in the latter half of the fifteenth century, gives us an interesting
glimpse of an inn-yard performance. The opening speech makes distinct
reference to the two classes of the audience described above as
occupying the galleries and the yard:
O ye sovereigns that sit, and ye brothers that stand right
up.
The "brothers," indeed, seem to have stood up so closely about the
stage that the actors had great difficulty in passing to and from
their dressing-room. Thus, Nowadays leaves the stage with the request:
Make space, sirs, let me go out!
New Gyse enters with the threat:
Out of my way, sirs, for dread of a beating!
While Nought, with even less respect, shouts:
Avaunt, knaves! Let me go by!
Language such as this would hardly be appropriate if addressed to the
"sovereigns" who sat in the galleries above; but, as addressed to the
"brothers," it probably served to create a general feeling of good
nature. And a feeling of good nature was desirable, for the actors
were facing the difficult problem of inducing the audience to pay for
its entertainment.
This problem they met by taking advantage of the most thrilling moment
of the plot. The Vice and his wicked though jolly companions, having
wholly failed to overcome the hero, Mankind, decide to call to their
assistance no less a person than the great Devil himself; and
accordingly they summon him with a "Walsingham wystyle." Immediately
he roars in the dressing-room, and shouts:
I come, with my legs under me!
There is a flash of powder, and an explosion of fireworks, while the
eager spectators crane their necks to view the entrance of this
"abhomynabull" personage. But nothing appears; and in the expectant
silence that follows the actors calmly announce a collection of money,
facetiously making the appearance of the Devil dependent on the
liberality of the audience:
_New Gyse._ Now ghostly to our purpose, worshipful sovereigns,
We intend to gather money, if it please your negligence.
For a man with a head that of great omnipotence--
_Nowadays_ [_interrupting_]. Keep your tale, in goodness, I
pray you, good brother!
[_Addressing the audience, and pointing towards the
dressing-room, where the Devil roars again._]
He is a worshipful man, sirs, saving your reverence.
He loveth no groats, nor pence, or two-pence;
Give us red royals, if ye will see his abominable presence.
_New Gyse._ Not so! Ye that may not pay the one, pay the other.
And with such phrases as "God bless you, master," "Ye will not say
nay," "Let us go by," "Do them all pay," "Well mote ye fare," they
pass through the audience gathering their groats, pence, and twopence;
after which they remount the stage, fetch in the Devil, and continue
their play without further interruption.
[Illustration: AN INN-YARD
The famous White Hart, in Southwark. The ground-plan shows the
arrangement of a carriers' inn with the stabling below; the guest
rooms were on the upper floors.]
In the smaller towns the itinerant players might, through a letter of
recommendation from their noble patron, or through the good-will of
some local dignitary, secure the use of the town-hall, of the
schoolhouse, or even of the village church. In such buildings, of
course, they could give their performances more advantageously, for
they could place money-takers at the doors, and exact adequate payment
from all who entered. In the great city of London, however, the
players were necessarily forced to make use almost entirely of public
inn-yards--an arrangement which, we may well believe, they found far
from satisfactory. Not being masters of the inns, they were merely
tolerated; they had to content themselves with hastily provided and
inadequate stage facilities; and, worst of all, for their recompense
they had to trust to a hat collection, at best a poor means of
securing money. Often too, no doubt, they could not get the use of a
given inn-yard when they most needed it, as on holidays and festive
occasions; and at all times they had to leave the public in
uncertainty as to where or when plays were to be seen. Their street
parade, with the noise of trumpets and drums, might gather a motley
crowd for the yard, but in so large a place as London it was
inadequate for advertisement among the better classes. And as the
troupes of the city increased in wealth and dignity, and as the
playgoing public grew in size and importance, the old makeshift
arrangement became more and more unsatisfactory.
At last the unsatisfactory situation was relieved by the specific
dedication of certain large inns to dramatic purposes; that is, the
proprietors of certain inns found it to their advantage to subordinate
their ordinary business to the urgent demands of the actors and the
playgoing public. Accordingly they erected in their yards permanent
stages adequately equipped for dramatic representations, constructed
in their galleries wooden benches to accommodate as many spectators as
possible, and were ready to let the use of their buildings to the
actors on an agreement by which the proprietor shared with the troupe
in the "takings" at the door. Thus there came into existence a number
of inn-playhouses, where the actors, as masters of the place, could
make themselves quite at home, and where the public without special
notification could be sure of always finding dramatic entertainment.
Richard Flecknoe, in his _Discourse of the English Stage_ (1664), goes
so far as to dignify these reconstructed inns with the name
"theatres." At first, says he, the players acted "without any certain
theatres or set companions, till about the beginning of Queen
Elizabeth's reign they began here to assemble into companies, and set
up theatres, first in the city (as in the inn-yards of the Cross Keys
and Bull in Grace and Bishop's Gate Street at this day to be seen),
till that fanatic spirit [i.e., Puritanism], which then began with the
stage and after ended with the throne, banished them thence into the
suburbs"--that is, into Shoreditch and the Bankside, where, outside
the jurisdiction of the puritanical city fathers, they erected their
first regular playhouses.
The "banishment" referred to by Flecknoe was the Order of the Common
Council issued on December 6, 1574. This famous document described
public acting as then taking place "in great inns, having chambers and
secret places adjoining to their open stages and galleries"; and it
ordered that henceforth "no inn-keeper, tavern-keeper, nor other
person whatsoever within the liberties of this city shall openly
show, or play, nor cause or suffer to be openly showed or played
within the house yard or any other place within the liberties of this
city, any play," etc.
How many inns were let on special occasions for dramatic purposes we
cannot say; but there were five "great inns," more famous than the
rest, which were regularly used by the best London troupes. Thus
Howes, in his continuation of Stow's _Annals_ (p. 1004), in attempting
to give a list of the playhouses which had been erected "within London
and the suburbs," begins with the statement, "Five inns, or common
osteryes, turned to playhouses." These five were the Bell and the
Cross Keys, hard by each other in Gracechurch Street, the Bull, in
Bishopsgate Street, the Bell Savage, on Ludgate Hill, and the Boar's
Head, in Whitechapel Street without Aldgate.[2]
[Footnote 2: All historians of the drama have confused this great
carriers' inn with the Boar's Head in Eastcheap made famous by
Falstaff. The error seems to have come from the _Analytical Index of
the Remembrancia_, which (p. 355) incorrectly catalogues the letter of
March 31, 1602, as referring to the "Boar's Head in Eastcheap." The
letter itself, however, when examined, gives no indication whatever of
Eastcheap, and other evidence shows conclusively that the inn was
situated in Whitechapel just outside of Aldgate.]
Although Flecknoe referred to the Order of the Common Council as a
"banishment," it did not actually drive the players from the city.
They were able, through the intervention of the Privy Council, and on
the old excuse of rehearsing plays for the Queen's entertainment, to
occupy the inns for a large part of each year.[3] John Stockwood, in a
sermon preached at Paul's Cross, August 24, 1578, bitterly complains
of the "eight ordinary places" used regularly for plays, referring, it
seems, to the five inns and the three playhouses--the Theatre,
Curtain, and Blackfriars--recently opened to the public.
[Footnote 3: See especially _The Acts of the Privy Council_ and _The
Remembrancia_ of the City of London.]
Richard Reulidge, in _A Monster Lately Found Out and Discovered_
(1628), writes that "soon after 1580" the authorities of London
received permission from Queen Elizabeth and her Privy Council "to
thrust the players out of the city, and to pull down all playhouses
and dicing-houses within their liberties: which accordingly was
effected; and the playhouses in Gracious Street [i.e., the Bell and
the Cross Keys], Bishopsgate Street [i.e., the Bull], that nigh Paul's
[i.e., Paul's singing school?], that on Ludgate Hill [i.e., the Bell
Savage], and the Whitefriars[4] were quite put down and suppressed by
the care of these religious senators."
[Footnote 4: There is some error here. The city had no jurisdiction
over Whitefriars, or Blackfriars either; but there was a playhouse in
Blackfriars at the time, and it was suppressed in 1584, though not by
the city authorities. Possibly Reulidge should have written
"Whitechapel."]
[Illustration: MAP OF LONDON SHOWING THE INN-PLAYHOUSES
1. The Bell Savage; 2. The Cross Keys; 3. The Bell; 4. The Bull; 5.
The Boar's Head.]
Yet, in spite of what Reulidge says, these five inns continued to be
used by the players for many years.[5] No doubt they were often used
surreptitiously. In _Martin's Month's Mind_ (1589), we read that a
person "for a penie may have farre better [entertainment] by oddes at
the Theatre and Curtaine, and _any blind playing house_ everie
day."[6] But the more important troupes were commonly able, through
the interference of the Privy Council, to get official permission to
use the inns during a large part of each year.
[Footnote 5: _The Remembrancia_ shows that the inn-playhouses remained
for many years as sharp thorns in the side of the puritanical city
fathers.]
[Footnote 6: Grosart, _Nash_, I, 179.]
There is not enough material about these early inn-playhouses to
enable one to write their separate histories. Below, however, I have
recorded in chronological order the more important references to them
which have come under my observation.
1557. On September 5 the Privy Council instructed the Lord Mayor of
London "that some of his officers do forthwith repair to the Boar's
Head without Aldgate, where, the Lords are informed, a lewd play
called _A Sackful of News_ shall be played this day," to arrest the
players, and send their playbook to the Council.[7]
[Footnote 7: Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_, VI, 168.]
1573. During this year there were various fencing contests held at the
Bull in Bishopsgate.[8]
[Footnote 8: W. Rendle, _The Inns of Old Southwark_, p. 235.]
1577. In February the Office of the Revels made a payment of 10_d._
"ffor the cariadge of the parts of ye well counterfeit from the Bell
in gracious strete to St. Johns, to be performed for the play of
_Cutwell_."[9]
[Footnote 9: A. Feuillerat, _Documents Relating to the Office of the
Revels in the Time of Queen Elizabeth_, p. 277.]
1579. On June 23 James Burbage was arrested for the sum of L5 13_d._
"as he came down Gracious Street towards the Cross Keys there to a
play." The name of the proprietor of this inn-playhouse is preserved
in one of the interrogatories connected with the case: "Item. Whether
did you, John Hynde, about xiii years past, in _anno_ 1579, the xxiii
of June, about two of the clock in the afternoon, send the sheriff's
officer unto the Cross Keys in Gratious Street, being then the
dwelling house of Richard Ibotson, citizen and brewer of London,"
etc.[10] Nothing more, I believe, is known of this person.
[Footnote 10: Burbage _v._ Brayne, printed in C.W. Wallace, _The First
London Theatre_, pp. 82, 90. Whether Burbage was going to the Cross
Keys as a spectator or as an actor is not indicated; but the
presumption is that he was then playing at the inn, although he was
proprietor of the Theatre.]
1579. Stephen Gosson, in _The Schoole of Abuse_, writes favorably of
"the two prose books played at the Bell Savage, where you shall find
never a word without wit, never a line without pith, never a letter
placed in vain; the _Jew_ and _Ptolome_, shown at the Bull ... neither
with amorous gesture wounding the eye, nor with slovenly talk hurting
the ears of the chast hearers."[11]
[Footnote 11: Arber's _English Reprints_, p. 40.]
1582. On July 1 the Earl of Warwick wrote to the Lord Mayor requesting
the city authorities to "give license to my servant, John David, this
bearer, to play his profest prizes in his science and profession of
defence at the Bull in Bishopsgate, or some other convenient place to
be assigned within the liberties of London." The Lord Mayor refused to
allow David to give his fencing contest "in an inn, which was somewhat
too close for infection, and appointed him to play in an open place of
the Leaden Hall," which, it may be added, was near the Bull.[12]
[Footnote 12: See The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 55-57.]
1583. William Rendle, in _The Inns of Old Southwark_, p. 235, states
that in this year "Tarleton, Wilson, and others note the stay of the
plague, and ask leave to play at the Bull in Bishopsgate, or the Bell
in Gracechurch Street," citing as his authority merely "City MS." The
Privy Council on November 26, 1583, addressed to the Lord Mayor a
letter requesting "that Her Majesty's Players [i.e., Tarleton, Wilson,
etc.] may be suffered to play within the liberties as heretofore they
have done."[13] And on November 28 the Lord Mayor issued to them a
license to play "at the sign of the Bull in Bishopsgate Street, and
the sign of the Bell in Gracious Street, and nowhere else within this
City."[14]
[Footnote 13: See _The Remembrancia_, in The Malone Society's
_Collections_, I, 66.]
[Footnote 14: C.W. Wallace, _The First London Theatre_, p. 11.]
1587. "James Cranydge played his master's prize the 21 of November,
1587, at the Bellsavage without Ludgate, at iiij sundry kinds of
weapons.... There played with him nine masters."[15]
[Footnote 15: _MS. Sloane_, 2530, f. 6-7, quoted by J.O. Halliwell in
his edition of _Tarlton's Jests_, p. xi. The Bell Savage seems to have
been especially patronized by fencers. George Silver, in his _Paradoxe
of Defence_ (1599), tells how he and his brother once challenged two
Italian fencers to a contest "to be played at the Bell Savage upon the
scaffold, when he that went in his fight faster back than he ought,
should be in danger to break his neck off the scaffold."]
Before 1588. In _Tarlton's Jests_[16] we find a number of references
to that famous actor's pleasantries in the London inns used by the
Queen's Players. It is impossible to date these exactly, but Tarleton
became a member of the Queen's Players in 1583, and he died in 1588.
[Footnote 16: First printed in 1611; reprinted by J.O. Halliwell for
The Shakespeare Society in 1844.]
At the Bull in Bishops-gate-street, where the Queen's
Players oftentimes played, Tarleton coming on the stage, one
from the gallery threw a pippin at him.
There was one Banks, in the time of Tarleton, who served the
Earl of Essex, and had a horse of strange qualities; and
being at the Cross Keys in Gracious Street getting money
with him, as he was mightily resorted to. Tarleton then,
with his fellows playing at the Bell by, came into the Cross
Keys, amongst many people, to see fashions.
At the Bull at Bishops-gate was a play of Henry the Fifth.
The several "jests" which follow these introductory sentences indicate
that the inn-yards differed in no essential way from the early public
playhouses.
1588. "John Mathews played his master's prize the 31 day of January,
1588, at the Bell Savage without Ludgate."[17]
[Footnote 17: _MS. Sloane_, 2530, f. 6-7, quoted by Halliwell in his
edition of _Tarlton's Jests_, p. xi. There is some difficulty with the
date. One of the "masters" before whom the prize was played was
"Rycharde Tarlton," whom Halliwell takes to be the famous actor of
that name; but Tarleton the actor died on September 3, 1588. Probably
Halliwell in transcribing the manuscript silently modernized the date
from the Old Style.]
1589. In November Lord Burghley directed the Lord Mayor to "give order
for the stay of all plays within the city." In reply the Lord Mayor
wrote:
According to which your Lordship's good pleasure, I
presently sent for such players as I could hear of; so as
there appeared yesterday before me the Lord Strange's
Players, to whom I specially gave in charge and required
them in Her Majesty's name to forbear playing until further
order might be given for their allowance in that respect.
Whereupon the Lord Admiral's Players very dutifully obeyed;
but the others, in very contemptuous manner departing from
me, went to the Cross Keys and played that afternoon.[18]
[Footnote 18: _Lansdowne MSS._ 60, quoted by Collier, _History of
English Dramatic Poetry_ (1879), I, 265.]
1594. On October 8, Henry, Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain and the
patron of Shakespeare's company, wrote to the Lord Mayor:
After my hearty commendations. Where my now company of
players have been accustomed for the better exercise of
their quality, and for the service of Her Majesty if need so
require, to play this winter time within the city at the
Cross Keys in Gracious Street, these are to require and pray
your Lordship (the time being such as, thanks to God, there
is now no danger of the sickness) to permit and suffer them
so to do.[19]
[Footnote 19: _The Remembrancia_, The Malone Society's _Collections_,
I, 73.]
By such devices as this the players were usually able to secure
permission to act "within the city" during the disagreeable months of
the winter when the large playhouses in the suburbs were difficult of
access.
1594. Anthony Bacon, the elder brother of Francis, came to lodge in
Bishopsgate Street. This fact very much disturbed his good mother, who
feared lest his servants might be corrupted by the plays to be seen at
the Bull near by.[20]
[Footnote 20: See W. Rendle, _The Inns of Old Southwark_, p. 236.]
1596. William Lambarde, in his _Perambulation of Kent_,[21] observes
that none of those who go "to Paris Garden, the Bell Savage, or
Theatre, to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence play, can
account of any pleasant spectacle unless they first pay one penny at
the gate, another at the entry of the scaffold, and the third for a
quiet standing."
[Footnote 21: The passage does not appear in the earlier edition of
1576, though it was probably written shortly after the erection of the
Theatre in the autumn of 1576.]
1602. On March 31 the Privy Council wrote to the Lord Mayor that the
players of the Earl of Oxford and of the Earl of Worcester had been
"joined by agreement together in one company, to whom, upon notice of
Her Majesty's pleasure, at the suit of the Earl of Oxford, toleration
hath been thought meet to be granted." The letter concludes:
And as the other companies that are allowed, namely of me
the Lord Admiral, and the Lord Chamberlain, be appointed
their certain houses, and one and no more to each company,
so we do straightly require that this third company be
likewise [appointed] to one place. And because we are
informed the house called the Boar's Head is the place they
have especially used and do best like of, we do pray and
require you that the said house, namely the Boar's Head, may
be assigned unto them.[22]
[Footnote 22: _The Remembrancia_, The Malone Society's _Collections_,
I, 85.]
That the strong Oxford-Worcester combination should prefer the Boar's
Head to the Curtain or the Rose Playhouse,[23] indicates that the
inn-yard was not only large, but also well-equipped for acting.
[Footnote 23: They had to use the Rose nevertheless; see page 158.]
1604. In a draft of a license to be issued to Queen Anne's Company,
those players are allowed to act "as well within their now usual
houses, called the Curtain and the Boar's Head, within our County of
Middlesex, as in any other playhouse not used by others."[24]
[Footnote 24: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 265.]
In 1608 the Boar's Head seems to have been occupied by the newly
organized Prince Charles's Company. In William Kelly's extracts from
the payments of the city of Leicester we find the entry: "Itm. Given
to the Prince's Players, of Whitechapel, London, xx _s._"
In 1664, as Flecknoe tells us, the Cross Keys and the Bull still gave
evidence of their former use as playhouses; perhaps even then they
were occasionally let for fencing and other contests. In 1666 the
great fire completely destroyed the Bell, the Cross Keys, and the Bell
Savage; the Bull, however, escaped, and enjoyed a prosperous career
for many years after. Samuel Pepys was numbered among its patrons, and
writers of the Restoration make frequent reference to it. What became
of the Boar's Head without Aldgate I am unable to learn; its memory,
however, is perpetuated to-day in Boar's Head Yard, between Middlesex
Street and Goulston Street, Whitechapel.
CHAPTER II
THE HOSTILITY OF THE CITY
As the actors rapidly increased in number and importance, and as
Londoners flocked in ever larger crowds to witness plays, the
animosity of two forces was aroused, Puritanism and Civic
Government,--forces which opposed the drama for different reasons, but
with almost equal fervor. And when in the course of time the Governors
of the city themselves became Puritans, the combined animosity thus
produced was sufficient to drive the players out of London into the
suburbs.
The Puritans attacked the drama as contrary to Holy Writ, as
destructive of religion, and as a menace to public morality. Against
plays, players, and playgoers they waged in pulpit and pamphlet a
warfare characterized by the most intense fanaticism. The charges they
made--of ungodliness, idolatrousness, lewdness, profanity, evil
practices, enormities, and "abuses" of all kinds--are far too numerous
to be noted here; they are interesting chiefly for their
unreasonableness and for the violence with which they were urged.
And, after all, however much the Puritans might rage, they were
helpless; authority to restrain acting was vested in the Lord Mayor,
his brethren the Aldermen, and the Common Council. The attitude of
these city officials towards the drama was unmistakable: they had no
more love for the actors than had the Puritans. They found that "plays
and players" gave them more trouble than anything else in the entire
administration of municipal affairs. The dedication of certain "great
inns" to the use of actors and to the entertainment of the
pleasure-loving element of the city created new and serious problems
for those charged with the preservation of civic law and order. The
presence in these inns of private rooms adjoining the yard and
balconies gave opportunity for immorality, gambling, fleecing, and
various other "evil practices"--an opportunity which, if we may
believe the Common Council, was not wasted. Moreover, the proprietors
of these inns made a large share of their profits from the beer, ale,
and other drinks dispensed to the crowds before, during, and after
performances (the proprietor of the Cross Keys, it will be recalled,
was described as "citizen and brewer of London"); and the resultant
intemperance among "such as frequented the said plays, being the
ordinary place of meeting for all vagrant persons, and masterless men
that hang about the city, theeves, horse-stealers, whoremongers,
cozeners, cony-catching persons, practicers of treason, and such other
like,"[25] led to drunkenness, frays, bloodshed, and often to general
disorder. Sometimes, as we know, turbulent apprentices and other
factions met by appointment at plays for the sole purpose of starting
riots or breaking open jails. "Upon Whitsunday," writes the Recorder
to Lord Burghley, "by reason no plays were the same day, all the city
was quiet."[26]
[Footnote 25: So the Lord Mayor characterized playgoers; see _The
Remembrancia_, in The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 75.]
[Footnote 26: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 164.]
Trouble of an entirely different kind arose when in the hot months of
the summer the plague was threatening. The meeting together at plays
of "great multitudes of the basest sort of people" served to spread
the infection throughout the city more quickly and effectively than
could anything else. On such occasions it was exceedingly difficult
for the municipal authorities to control the actors, who were at best
a stubborn and unruly lot; and often the pestilence had secured a full
start before acting could be suppressed.
These troubles, and others which cannot here be mentioned, made one of
the Lord Mayors exclaim in despair: "The Politique State and
Government of this City by no one thing is so greatly annoyed and
disquieted as by players and plays, and the disorders which follow
thereupon."[27]
[Footnote 27: _The Remembrancia_, in The Malone Society's
_Collections_, I, 69.]
This annoyance, serious enough in itself, was aggravated by the fact
that most of the troupes were under the patronage of great noblemen,
and some were even high in favor with the Queen. As a result, the
attempts on the part of the Lord Mayor and his Aldermen to regulate
the players were often interfered with by other or higher authority.
Sometimes it was a particular nobleman, whose request was not to be
ignored, who intervened in behalf of his troupe; most often, however,
it was the Privy Council, representing the Queen and the nobility in
general, which championed the cause of the actors and countermanded
the decrees of the Lord Mayor and his brethren. One of the most
notable things in the City's _Remembrancia_ is this long conflict of
authority between the Common Council and the Privy Council over actors
and acting.
In 1573 the situation seems to have approached a crisis. The Lord
Mayor had become strongly puritanical, and in his efforts to suppress
"stage-plays" was placing more and more obstacles in the way of the
actors. The temper of the Mayor is revealed in two entries in the
records of the Privy Council. On July 13, 1573, the Lords of the
Council sent a letter to him requesting him "to permit liberty to
certain Italian players"; six days later they sent a second letter,
repeating the request, and "marveling that he did it not at their
first request."[28] His continued efforts to suppress the drama
finally led the troupes to appeal for relief to the Privy Council. On
March 22, 1574, the Lords of the Council dispatched "a letter to the
Lord Mayor to advertise their Lordships what causes he hath to
restrain plays." His answer has not been preserved, but that he
persisted in his hostility to the drama is indicated by the fact that
in May the Queen openly took sides with the players. To the Earl of
Leicester's troupe she issued a special royal license, authorizing
them to act "as well within our city of London and liberties of the
same, as also within the liberties and freedoms of any our cities,
towns, boroughs, etc., whatsoever"; and to the mayors and other
officers she gave strict orders not to interfere with such
performances: "Willing and commanding you, and every of you, as ye
tender our pleasure, to permit and suffer them herein without any your
lets, hindrances, or molestation during the term aforesaid, any act,
statute, proclamation, or commandment heretofore made, or hereafter to
be made, to the contrary notwithstanding."
[Footnote 28: Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_, VIII, 131, 132.]
This license was a direct challenge to the authority of the Lord
Mayor. He dared not answer it as directly; but on December 6, 1574, he
secured from the Common Council the passage of an ordinance which
placed such heavy restrictions upon acting as virtually to nullify the
license issued by the Queen, and to regain for the Mayor complete
control of the drama within the city. The Preamble of this remarkable
ordinance clearly reveals the puritanical character of the City
Government:
Whereas heretofore sundry great disorders and inconveniences
have been found to ensue to this city by the inordinate
haunting of great multitudes of people, specially youths, to
plays, interludes, and shews: namely, occasion of frays and
quarrels; evil practises of incontinency in great inns
having chambers and secret places adjoining to their open
stages and galleries; inveigling and alluring of maids,
specially orphans and good citizens' children under age, to
privy and unmeet contracts; the publishing of unchaste,
uncomly, and unshamefaced speeches and doings; withdrawing
of the Queen's Majesty's subjects from divine service on
Sundays and holy days, at which times such plays were
chiefly used; unthrifty waste of the money of the poor and
fond persons; sundry robberies by picking and cutting of
purses; uttering of popular, busy, and seditious matters;
and many other corruptions of youth, and other enormities;
besides that also sundry slaughters and maimings of the
Queen's subjects have happened by ruins of scaffolds,
frames, and stages, and by engines, weapons, and powder used
in plays. And whereas in time of God's visitation by the
plague such assemblies of the people in throng and press
have been very dangerous for spreading of infection.... And
for that the Lord Mayor and his brethren the Aldermen,
together with the grave and discreet citizens in the Common
Council assembled, do doubt and fear lest upon God's
merciful withdrawing his hand of sickness from us (which God
grant), the people, specially the meaner and most unruly
sort, should with sudden forgetting of His visitation,
without fear of God's wrath, and without due respect of the
good and politique means that He hath ordained for the
preservation of common weals and peoples in health and good
order, return to the undue use of such enormities, to the
great offense of God....[29]
[Footnote 29: For the complete document see W.C. Hazlitt, _The English
Drama and Stage_, p. 27.]
The restrictions on playing imposed by the ordinance may be briefly
summarized:
1. Only such plays should be acted as were free from all unchastity,
seditiousness, and "uncomely matter."
2. Before being acted all plays should be "first perused and allowed
in such order and form, and by such persons as by the Lord Mayor and
Court of Aldermen for the time being shall be appointed."
3. Inns or other buildings used for acting, and their proprietors,
should both be licensed by the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen.
4. The proprietors of such buildings should be "bound to the
Chamberlain of London" by a sufficient bond to guarantee "the keeping
of good order, and avoiding of" the inconveniences noted in the
Preamble.
5. No plays should be given during the time of sickness, or during any
inhibition ordered at any time by the city authorities.
6. No plays should be given during "any usual time of divine service,"
and no persons should be admitted into playing places until after
divine services were over.
7. The proprietors of such places should pay towards the support of
the poor a sum to be agreed upon by the city authorities.
In order, however, to avoid trouble with the Queen, or those noblemen
who were accustomed to have plays given in their homes for the private
entertainment of themselves and their guests, the Common Council
added, rather grudgingly, the following proviso:
Provided alway that this act (otherwise than touching the
publishing of unchaste, seditious, and unmeet matters) shall
not extend to any plays, interludes, comedies, tragedies, or
shews to be played or shewed in the private house, dwelling,
or lodging of any nobleman, citizen, or gentleman, which
shall or will then have the same there so played or shewed
in his presence for the festivity of any marriage, assembly
of friends, or other like cause, without public or common
collections of money of the auditory or beholders thereof.
Such regulations if strictly enforced would prove very annoying to the
players. But, as the Common Council itself informs us, "these orders
were not then observed." The troupes continued to play in the city,
protected against any violent action on the part of the municipal
authorities by the known favor of the Queen and the frequent
interference of the Privy Council. This state of affairs was not, of
course, comfortable for the actors; but it was by no means desperate,
and for several years after the passage of the ordinance of 1574 they
continued without serious interruption to occupy their inn-playhouses.
The long-continued hostility of the city authorities, however, of
which the ordinance of 1574 was an ominous expression, led more or
less directly to the construction of special buildings devoted to
plays and situated beyond the jurisdiction of the Common Council. As
the Reverend John Stockwood, in _A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse,
1578_, indignantly puts it:
Have we not _houses of purpose_, built with great charges
for the maintenance of plays, and that _without the
liberties_, as who would say "_There, let them say what they
will say, we will play!_"
Thus came into existence playhouses; and with them dawned a new era in
the history of the English drama.
[Illustration: THE SITE OF THE FIRST PLAYHOUSES
Finsbury Field and Holywell. The man walking from the Field towards
Shoreditch is just entering Holywell Lane.
(From Agas's _Map of London_, representing the city as it was about
1560.)]
CHAPTER III
THE THEATRE
The hostility of the city to the drama was unquestionably the main
cause of the erection of the first playhouse; yet combined with this
were two other important causes, usually overlooked. The first was the
need of a building specially designed to meet the requirements of the
players and of the public, a need yearly growing more urgent as plays
became more complex, acting developed into a finer art, and audiences
increased in dignity as well as in size. The second and the more
immediate cause was the appearance of a man with business insight
enough to see that such a building would pay. The first playhouse, we
should remember, was not erected by a troupe of actors, but by a
money-seeking individual.[30] Although he was himself an actor, and
the manager of a troupe, he did not, it seems, take the troupe into
his confidence. In complete independence of any theatrical
organization he proceeded with the erection of his building as a
private speculation; and, we are told, he dreamed of the "continual
great profit and commodity through plays that should be used there
every week."
[Footnote 30: I emphasize this point because the opposite is the
accepted opinion. We find it expressed in _The Cambridge History of
English Literature_, VI, 431, as follows: "Certain players, finding
the city obdurate, and unwilling to submit to its severe regulations,
began to look about them for some means of carrying on their business
out of reach of the mayor's authority," etc.]
This man, "the first builder of playhouses,"--and, it might have been
added, the pioneer in a new field of business,--was James Burbage,
originally, as we are told by one who knew him well, "by occupation a
joiner; and reaping but a small living by the same, gave it over and
became a common player in plays."[31] As an actor he was more
successful, for as early as 1572 we find him at the head of
Leicester's excellent troupe.
[Footnote 31: Deposition by Robert Myles, 1592, printed in Wallace's
_The First London Theatre_, p. 141.]
Having in 1575 conceived the notion of erecting a building specially
designed for dramatic entertainments, he was at once confronted with
the problem of a suitable location. Two conditions narrowed his
choice: first, the site had to be outside the jurisdiction of the
Common Council; secondly, it had to be as near as possible to the
city.
No doubt he at once thought of the two suburbs that were specially
devoted to recreation, the Bankside to the south, and Finsbury Field
to the north of the city. The Bankside had for many years been
associated in the minds of Londoners with "sports and pastimes."
Thither the citizens were accustomed to go to witness bear-baiting
and bull-baiting, to practice archery, and to engage in various
athletic sports. Thither, too, for many years the actors had gone to
present their plays. In 1545 King Henry VIII had issued a proclamation
against vagabonds, ruffians, idle persons, and common players,[32] in
which he referred to their "fashions commonly used at the Bank." The
Bankside, however, was associated with the lowest and most vicious
pleasures of London, for here were situated the stews, bordering the
river's edge. Since the players were at this time subject to the
bitterest attacks from the London preachers, Burbage wisely decided
not to erect the first permanent home of the drama in a locality
already a common target for puritan invective.
[Footnote 32: See page 134.]
The second locality, Finsbury Field, had nearly all the advantages,
and none of the disadvantages, of the Bankside. Since 1315 the Field
had been in the possession of the city,[33] and had been used as a
public playground, where families could hold picnics, falconers could
fly their hawks, archers could exercise their sport, and the militia
on holidays could drill with all "the pomp and circumstance of
glorious war." In short, the Field was eminently respectable, was
accessible to the city, and was definitely associated with the idea of
entertainment. The locality, therefore, was almost ideal for the
purpose Burbage had in mind.[34]
[Footnote 33: See _The Remembrancia_, p. 274; Stow, _Survey_. The
Corporation of London held the manor on lease from St. Paul's
Cathedral until 1867.]
[Footnote 34: Doubtless, too, Burbage was influenced in his choice by
the fact that he had already made his home in the Liberty of
Shoreditch, near Finsbury Field.]
The new playhouse, of course, could not be erected in the Field
itself, which was under the control of the city; but just to the east
of the Field certain vacant land, part of the dissolved Priory of
Holywell, offered a site in every way suitable to the purpose. The
Holywell property, at the dissolution of the Priory, had passed under
the jurisdiction of the Crown, and hence the Lord Mayor and the
Aldermen could not enforce municipal ordinances there. Moreover, it
was distant from the city wall not much more than half a mile. The old
conventual church had been demolished, the Priory buildings had been
converted into residences, and the land near the Shoreditch highway
had been built up with numerous houses. The land next to the Field,
however, was for the most part undeveloped. It contained some
dilapidated tenements, a few old barns formerly belonging to the
Priory, and small garden plots, conspicuous objects in the early maps.
[Illustration: THE SITE OF THE FIRST PLAYHOUSES
Finsbury Field lies to the north (beyond Moor Field, the small
rectangular space next to the city wall), and the Holywell Property
lies to the right of Finsbury Field, between the Field and the
highway. Holywell Lane divides the garden plots; the Theatre was
erected just to the north, and the Curtain just to the south of this
lane, facing the Field. (From the _Map of London_ by Braun and
Hogenbergius representing the city as it was in 1554-1558.)]
Burbage learned that a large portion of this land lying next to the
Field was in the possession of a well-to-do gentleman named Gyles
Alleyn,[35] and that Alleyn was willing to lease a part of his
holding on the conditions of development customary in this section of
London. These conditions are clearly revealed in a chancery suit of
1591:
The ground there was for the most part converted first into
garden plots, and then leasing the same to diverse tenants
caused them to covenant or promise to build upon the same,
by occasion whereof the buildings which are there were for
the most part erected and the rents increased.[36]
[Footnote 35: For a detailed history of the property from the year
1128, and for the changes in the ownership of Alleyn's portion after
the dissolution, see Braines, _Holywell Priory_.]
[Footnote 36: Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 365. The suit
concerns the Curtain property, somewhat south of the Alleyn property,
but a part of the Priory.]
The part of Alleyn's property on which Burbage had his eye was in sore
need of improvement. It consisted of five "paltry tenements,"
described as "old, decayed, and ruinated for want of reparation, and
the best of them was but of two stories high," and a long barn "very
ruinous and decayed and ready to have fallen down," one half of which
was used as a storage-room, the other half as a slaughter-house. Three
of the tenements had small gardens extending back to the Field, and
just north of the barn was a bit of "void ground," also adjoining the
Field. It was this bit of "void ground" that Burbage had selected as a
suitable location for his proposed playhouse. The accompanying map of
the property[37] will make clear the position of this "void ground"
and of the barns and tenements about it. Moreover, it will serve to
indicate the exact site of the Theatre. If one will bear in mind the
fact that in the London of to-day Curtain Road marks the eastern
boundary of Finsbury Field, and New Inn Yard cuts off the lower half
of the Great Barn, he will be able to place Burbage's structure within
a few yards.[38]
[Footnote 37: I have based this map in large measure on the documents
presented by Braines in his excellent pamphlet, _Holywell Priory_.]
[Footnote 38: For proof see Braines, _op. cit._]
[Illustration: A PLAN OF BURBAGE'S HOLYWELL PROPERTY
Based on the lease, and on the miscellaneous documents printed by
Halliwell-Phillipps and by Braines. The "common sewer" is now marked
by Curtain Road, and the "ditch from the horse-pond" by New Inn Yard.]
The property is carefully described in the lease--quoted below--which
Burbage secured from Alleyn, but the reader will need to refer to the
map in order to follow with ease the several paragraphs of
description:[39]
All those two houses or tenements, with appurtenances, which
at the time of the said former demise made were in the
several tenures or occupations of Joan Harrison, widow, and
John Dragon.
And also all that house or tenement with the appurtenances,
together with the garden ground lying behind part of the
same, being then likewise in the occupation of William
Gardiner; which said garden plot doth extend in breadth from
a great stone wall there which doth enclose part of the
garden then or lately being in the occupation of the said
Gyles, unto the garden there then in the occupation of Edwin
Colefox, weaver, and in length from the same house or
tenement unto a brick wall there next unto the fields
commonly called Finsbury Fields.
And also all that house or tenement, with the appurtenances,
at the time of the said former demise made called or known
by the name of the Mill-house; together with the garden
ground lying behind part of the same, also at the time of
the said former demise made being in the tenure or
occupation of the aforesaid Edwin Colefox, or of his
assigns; which said garden ground doth extend in length from
the same house or tenement unto the aforesaid brick wall
next unto the aforesaid Fields.
And also all those three upper rooms, with the
appurtenances, next adjoining to the aforesaid Mill-house,
also being at the time of the said former demise made in the
occupation of Thomas Dancaster, shoemaker, or of his
assigns; and also all the nether rooms, with the
appurtenances, lying under the same three upper rooms, and
next adjoining also to the aforesaid house or tenement
called the Mill-house, then also being in the several
tenures or occupations of Alice Dotridge, widow, and Richard
Brockenbury, or of their assigns; together with the garden
ground lying behind the same, extending in length from the
same nether rooms down unto the aforesaid brick wall next
unto the aforesaid Fields, and then or late being also in
the tenure or occupation of the aforesaid Alice Dotridge.
And also so much of the ground and soil lying and being
afore all the tenements or houses before granted, as
extendeth in length from the outward part of the aforesaid
tenements being at the time of the making of the said former
demise in the occupation of the aforesaid Joan Harrison and
John Dragon, unto a pond there being next unto the barn or
stable then in the occupation of the right honorable the
Earl of Rutland or of his assigns, and in breadth from the
aforesaid tenement or Mill-house to the midst of the well
being afore the same tenements.
And also all that Great Barn, with the appurtenances, at the
time of the making of the said former demise made being in
the several occupations of Hugh Richards, innholder, and
Robert Stoughton, butcher; and also a little piece of ground
then inclosed with a pale and next adjoining to the
aforesaid barn, and then or late before that in the
occupation of the said Robert Stoughton; together also with
all the ground and soil lying and being between the said
nether rooms last before expressed, and the aforesaid Great
Barn, and the aforesaid pond; that is to say, extending in
length from the aforesaid pond unto a ditch beyond the brick
wall next the aforesaid Fields.
And also the said Gyles Alleyn and Sara his wife do by these
presents demise, grant, and to farm lett unto the said James
Burbage all the right, title, and interest which the said
Gyles and Sara have or ought to have in or to all the
grounds and soil lying between the aforesaid Great Barn and
the barn being at the time of the said former demise in the
occupation of the Earl of Rutland or of his assigns,
extending in length from the aforesaid pond and from the
aforesaid stable or barn then in the occupation of the
aforesaid Earl of Rutland or of his assigns, down to the
aforesaid brick wall next the aforesaid Fields.[40]
And also the said Gyles and Sara do by these presents
demise, grant, and to farm lett to the said James all the
said void ground lying and being betwixt the aforesaid ditch
and the aforesaid brick wall, extending in length from the
aforesaid [great stone] wall[41] which encloseth part of the
aforesaid garden being at the time of the making of the said
former demise or late before that in the occupation of the
said Gyles Allen, unto the aforesaid barn then in the
occupation of the aforesaid Earl or of his assigns.
[Footnote 39: The original lease may be found incorporated in Alleyn
_v._ Street, Coram Rege, 1599-1600, printed in full by Wallace, _The
First London Theatre_, pp. 163-80, and again in Alleyn _v._ Burbage,
Queen's Bench, 1602, Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 267-75. The lease, I
think, was in English not Latin, and hence is more correctly given in
the first document; in the second document the scrivener has
translated it into Latin. The lease is also given in part on page
187.]
[Footnote 40: This part of the property was claimed by the Earl of
Rutland, and was being used by him. For a long time it was the subject
of dispute. Ultimately, it seems, the Earl secured the title, as he
had always had the use of the property. This probably explains why
Burbage did not attempt to erect his playhouse there.]
[Footnote 41: The document by error reads "brick wall" but the mistake
is obvious, and the second version of the lease does not repeat the
error. This clause merely means that the ditch, not the brick wall,
constituted the western boundary of the property.]
The lease was formally signed on April 13, 1576, and Burbage entered
into the possession of his property. Since the terms of the lease are
important for an understanding of the subsequent history of the
playhouse, I shall set these forth briefly:
First, the lease was to run for twenty-one years from April 13, 1576,
at an annual rental of L14.
Secondly, Burbage was to spend before the expiration of ten years the
sum of L200 in rebuilding and improving the decayed tenements.
Thirdly, in view of this expenditure of L200, Burbage was to have at
the end of the ten years the right to renew the lease at the same
rental of L14 a year for twenty-one years, thus making the lease good
in all for thirty-one years:
And the said Gyles Alleyn and Sara his wife did thereby
covenant with the said James Burbage that they should and
would at any time within the ten years next ensuing at or
upon the lawful request or demand of the said James Burbage
make or cause to be made to the said James Burbage a new
lease or grant like to the same presents for the term of one
and twenty years more, to begin from the date of making the
same lease, yielding therefor the rent reserved in the
former indenture.[42]
[Footnote 42: Quoted from Burbage _v._ Alleyn, Court of Requests,
1600, Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 182. I have stripped the passage of some
of its legal verbiage.]
Fourthly, it was agreed that at any time before the expiration of the
lease, Burbage might take down and carry away to his own use any
building that in the mean time he might have erected on the vacant
ground for the purpose of a playhouse:
And farther, the said Gyles Alleyn and Sara his wife did
covenant and grant to the said James Burbage that it should
and might be lawful to the said James Burbage (in
consideration of the imploying and bestowing the foresaid
two hundred pounds in forme aforesaid) at any time or times
before the end of the said term of one and twenty years, to
have, take down, and carry away to his own proper use for
ever all such buildings and other things as should be
builded, erected, or set up in or upon the gardens and void
grounds by the said James, either for a theatre or playing
place, or for any other lawful use, without any stop, claim,
let, trouble, or interruption of the said Gyles Alleyn and
Sara his wife.[43]
[Footnote 43: Quoted from Burbage _v._ Alleyn, Court of Requests,
1600, Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 182.]
Protected by these specific terms, Burbage proceeded to the erection
of his playhouse. He must have had faith and abundant courage, for he
was a poor man, quite unequal to the large expenditures called for by
his plans. A person who had known him for many years, deposed in 1592
that "James Burbage was not at the time of the first beginning of the
building of the premises worth above one hundred marks[44] in all his
substance, for he and this deponent were familiarly acquainted long
before that time and ever since."[45] We are not surprised to learn,
therefore, that he was "constrained to borrow diverse sums of money,"
and that he actually pawned the lease itself to a money-lender.[46]
Even so, without assistance, we are told, he "should never be able to
build it, for it would cost five times as much as he was worth."
[Footnote 44: That is, about L80.]
[Footnote 45: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 134; cf. p. 153.]
[Footnote 46: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 151. Cuthbert Burbage declared
in 1635: "The Theatre he built with many hundred pounds taken up at
interest." (Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 317.)]
Fortunately he had a wealthy brother-in-law, John Brayne,[47] a London
grocer, described as "worth five hundred pounds at the least, and by
common fame worth a thousand marks."[48] In some way Brayne became
interested in the new venture. Like Burbage, he believed that large
profits would flow from such a novel undertaking; and as a result he
readily agreed to share the expense of erecting and maintaining the
building. Years later members of the Brayne faction asserted that
James Burbage "induced" his brother-in-law to venture upon the
enterprise by unfairly representing the great profits to ensue;[49]
but the evidence, I think, shows that Brayne eagerly sought the
partnership. Burbage himself asserted in 1588 that Brayne "practiced
to obtain some interest therein," and presumed "that he might easily
compass the same by reason that he was natural brother"; and that he
voluntarily offered to "bear and pay half the charges of the said
building then bestowed and thereafter to be bestowed" in order "that
he might have the moiety[50] of the above named Theatre."[51] As a
further inducement, so the Burbages asserted, he promised that "for
that he had no children," the moiety at his death should go to the
children of James Burbage, "whose advancement he then seemed greatly
to tender."
[Footnote 47: The name is often spelled "Braynes."]
[Footnote 48: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 109.]
[Footnote 49: See Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 139 _seq._]
[Footnote 50: That is, half-interest.]
[Footnote 51: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 40.]
Whatever caused Brayne to interest himself in the venture, he quickly
became fired with such hopes of great gain that he not only spent upon
the building all the money he could gather or borrow, but sold his
stock of groceries for L146, disposed of his house for L100, even
pawned his clothes, and put his all into the new structure. The spirit
in which he worked to make the venture a success, and the personal
sacrifices that he and his wife made, fully deserve the quotation
here of two legal depositions bearing on the subject:
This deponent, being servant, in Bucklersbury, aforesaid, to
one Robert Kenningham, grocer, in which street the said John
Brayne dwelled also, and of the same trade, he, the said
Brayne, at the time he joined with the said James Burbage in
the aforesaid lease, was reputed among his neighbors to be
worth one thousand pounds at the least, and that after he
had joined with the said Burbage in the matter of the
building of the said Theatre, he began to slack his own
trade, and gave himself to the building thereof, and the
chief care thereof he took upon him, and hired workmen of
all sorts for that purpose, bought timber and all other
things belonging thereunto, and paid all. So as, in this
deponent's conscience, he bestowed thereupon for his owne
part the sum of one thousand marks at the least, in so much
as his affection was given so greatly to the finishing
thereof, in hope of great wealth and profit during their
lease, that at the last he was driven to sell to this
deponent's father his lease of the house wherein he dwelled
for L100, and to this deponent all such wares as he had left
and all that belonged thereunto remaining in the same, for
the sum of L146 and odd money, whereof this deponent did pay
for him to one Kymbre, an ironmonger in London, for iron
work which the said Brayne bestowed upon the said Theatre,
the sum of L40. And afterwards the said Brayne took the
matter of the said building so upon him as he was driven to
borrow money to supply the same, saying to this deponent
that his brother Burbage was not able to help the same, and
that he found not towards it above the value of fifty
pounds, some part in mony and the rest in stuff.[52]
[Footnote 52: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 136.]
In reading the next deposition, one should bear in mind the fact that
the deponent, Robert Myles, was closely identified with the Brayne
faction, and was, therefore, a bitter enemy to the Burbages. Yet his
testimony, though prejudiced, gives us a vivid picture of Brayne's
activity in the building of the Theatre:
So the said John Brayne made a great sum of money of purpose
and intent to go to the building of the said playhouse, and
thereupon did provide timber and other stuff needful for the
building thereof, and hired carpenters and plasterers for
the same purpose, and paid the workmen continually. So as he
for his part laid out of his own purse and what upon credit
about the same to the sum of L600 or L700 at the least. And
in the same time, seeing the said James Burbage nothing able
either of himself or by his credit to contribute any like
sum towards the building thereof, being then to be finished
or else to be lost that had been bestowed upon it already,
the said Brayne was driven to sell his house he dwelled in
in Bucklersbury, and all his stock that was left, and give
up his trade, yea in the end to pawn and sell both his own
garments and his wife's, and to run in debt to many for
money, to finish the said playhouse, and so to employ
himself only upon that matter, and all whatsoever he could
make, to his utter undoing, for he saieth that in the latter
end of the finishing thereof, the said Brayne and his wife,
the now complainants, were driven to labor in the said work
for saving of some of the charge in place of two laborers,
whereas the said James Burbage went about his own business,
and at sometimes when he did take upon him to do some thing
in the said work, he would be and was allowed a workman's
hire as other the workman there had.[53]
[Footnote 53: Brayne _v._ Burbage, 1592. Printed in full by Wallace,
_op cit._ p. 141.]
The last fling at Burbage is quite gratuitous; yet it is probably true
that the main costs of erecting the playhouse fell upon the shoulders
of Brayne. The evidence is contradictory; some persons assert that
Burbage paid half the cost of the building,[54] others that Brayne
paid nearly all,[55] and still others content themselves with saying
that Brayne paid considerably more than half. The last statement may
be accepted as true. The assertion of Gyles Alleyn in 1601, that the
Theatre was "erected at the costs and charges of one Brayne and not of
the said James Burbage, to the value of one thousand marks,"[56] is
doubtless incorrect; more correct is the assertion of Robert Myles,
executor of the Widow Brayne's will, in 1597: "The said John Brayne
did join with the said James [Burbage] in the building aforesaid, and
did expend thereupon greater sums than the said James, that is to say,
at least five or six hundred pounds."[57] Since there is evidence
that the playhouse ultimately cost about L700,[58] we might hazard the
guess that of this sum Brayne furnished about L500,[59] and Burbage
about L200. To equalize the expenditure it was later agreed that "the
said Brayne should take and receive all the rents and profits of the
said Theatre to his own use until he should be answered such sums of
money which he had laid out for and upon the same Theatre more than
the said Burbage had done."[60]
[Footnote 54: Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 213, 217, 263, 265, _et al._]
[Footnote 55: Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 137, 141, 142, 148, 153.]
[Footnote 56: Alleyn _v._ Burbage, Star Chamber Proceedings, 1601-02;
printed by Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 277.]
[Footnote 57: Myles _v._ Burbage and Alleyn, 1597; printed by Wallace,
_op. cit._, p. 159; cf. pp. 263, 106, 152.]
[Footnote 58: See Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 277.]
[Footnote 59: This agrees with the claim of Brayne's widow.]
[Footnote 60: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 120.]
But if Burbage at the outset was "nothing able to contribute any"
great sum of ready money towards the building of the first playhouse,
he did contribute other things equally if not more important. In the
first place, he conceived the idea, and he carried it as far towards
realization as his means allowed. In the second place, he planned the
building--its stage as well as its auditorium--to meet the special
demands of the actors and the comfort of the audience. This called for
bold originality and for ingenuity of a high order, for, it must be
remembered, he had no model to study--he was designing the first
structure of its kind in England.[61] For this task he was well
prepared. In the first place, he was an actor of experience; in the
second place, he was the manager of one of the most important troupes
in England; and, in the third place, he was by training and early
practice a carpenter and builder. In other words, he had exact
knowledge of what was needed, and the practical skill to meet those
needs.
[Footnote 61: Mr. E.K. Chambers (_The Mediaeval Stage_, I, 383, note 2;
II, 190, note 4) calls attention to a "theatre" belonging to the city
of Essex as early as 1548. Possibly the Latin document he cites
referred to an amphitheatre of some sort near the city which was used
for dramatic performances; at any rate "in theatro" does not
necessarily imply the existence of a playhouse (cf., for example, _op.
cit._, I, 81-82). There is also a reference (quoted by Chambers, _op.
cit._, II, 191, note 1, from _Norfolk Archaeology_, XI, 336) to a
"game-house" built by the corporation of Yarmouth in 1538 for dramatic
performances. What kind of house this was we do not know, but the
corporation leased it for other purposes, with the proviso that it
should be available "at all such times as any interludes or plays
should be ministered or played." Howes, in his continuation of Stow's
_Annals_ (1631), p. 1004, declares that before Burbage's time he
"neither knew, heard, nor read of any such theatres, set stages, or
playhouses as have been purposely built, within man's memory"; and
Cuthbert Burbage confidently asserted that his father "was the first
builder of playhouses"--an assertion which, I think, cannot well be
denied.]
The building that he designed and erected he named--as by virtue of
priority he had a right to do--"The Theatre."
Of the Theatre, unfortunately, we have no pictorial representation,
and no formal description, so that our knowledge of its size, shape,
and general arrangement must be derived from scattered and
miscellaneous sources. That the building was large we may feel sure;
the cost of its erection indicates as much. The Fortune, one of the
largest and handsomest of the later playhouses, cost only L520, and
the Hope, also very large, cost L360. The Theatre, therefore, built at
a cost of L700, could not have been small. It is commonly referred to,
even so late as 1601, as "the great house called the Theatre," and the
author of _Skialetheia_ (1598) applied to it the significant adjective
"vast." Burbage, no doubt, had learned from his experience as manager
of a troupe the pecuniary advantage of having an auditorium large
enough to receive all who might come. Exactly how many people his
building could accommodate we cannot say. The Reverend John Stockwood,
in 1578, exclaims bitterly: "Will not a filthy play, with the blast of
a trumpet, sooner call thither a thousand than an hour's tolling of
the bell bring to the sermon a hundred?"[62] And Fleetwood, the City
Recorder, in describing a quarrel which took place in 1584 "at Theatre
door," states that "near a thousand people" quickly assembled when the
quarrel began.
[Footnote 62: The rest of his speech indicates that he had the Theatre
in mind. The passage, of course, is rhetorical.]
In shape the building was probably polygonal, or circular. I see no
good reason for supposing that it was square; Johannes de Witt
referred to it as an "amphitheatre," and the Curtain, erected the
following year in imitation, was probably polygonal.[63] It was built
of timber, and its exterior, no doubt, was--as in the case of
subsequent playhouses--of lime and plaster. The interior consisted of
three galleries surrounding an open space called the "yard." The
German traveler, Samuel Kiechel, who visited London in the autumn of
1585, described the playhouses--i.e., the Theatre and the Curtain--as
"singular [_sonderbare_] houses, which are so constructed that they
have about three galleries, one above the other."[64] And Stephen
Gosson, in _Plays Confuted_ (_c._ 1581) writes: "In the playhouses at
London, it is the fashion for youths to go first into the yard, and to
carry their eye through every gallery; then, like unto ravens, where
they spy the carrion, thither they fly, and press as near to the
fairest as they can." The "yard" was unroofed, and all persons there
had to stand during the entire performance. The galleries, however,
were protected by a roof, were divided into "rooms," and were provided
for the most part with seats. Gyles Alleyn inserted in the lease he
granted to Burbage the following condition:
And further, that it shall or may [be] lawful for the said
Gyles and for his wife and family, upon lawful request
therefor made to the said James Burbage, his executors or
assigns, to enter or come into the premises, and there in
some one of the upper rooms to have such convenient place to
sit or stand to see such plays as shall be there played,
freely without anything therefor paying.[65]
[Footnote 63: One cannot be absolutely sure, yet the whole history of
early playhouses indicates that the Theatre was polygonal (or
circular) in shape. The only reason for suspecting that it might have
been square, doubtfully presented by T.S. Graves in "The Shape of the
First London Theatre" (_The South Atlantic Quarterly_, July, 1914),
seems to me to deserve no serious consideration.]
[Footnote 64: Quoted by W.B. Rye, _England as Seen by Foreigners_, p.
88.]
[Footnote 65: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 177.]
The stage was a platform, projecting into the yard, with a
tiring-house at the rear, and a balcony overhead. The details of the
stage, no doubt, were subject to alteration as experience suggested,
for its materials were of wood, and histrionic and dramatic art were
both undergoing rapid development.[66] The furnishings and
decorations, as in the case of modern playhouses, seem to have been
ornate. Thus T[homas] W[hite], in _A Sermon Preached at Pawles Crosse,
on Sunday the Thirde of November, 1577_, exclaims: "Behold the
sumptuous Theatre houses, a continual monument of London's
prodigality"; John Stockwood, in _A Sermon Preached at Paules Cross,
1578_, refers to it as "the gorgeous playing place erected in the
Fields"; and Gabriel Harvey could think of no more appropriate epithet
for it than "painted"--"painted theatres," "painted stage."
[Footnote 66: There is no reason whatever to suppose, with Ordish,
Mantzius, Lawrence, and others, that the stage of the Theatre was
removable; for although the building was frequently used by fencers,
tumblers, etc., it was never, so far as I can discover, used for
animal-baiting.]
The building was doubtless used for dramatic performances in the
autumn of 1576, although it was not completed until later; John
Grigges, one of the carpenters, deposed that Burbage and Brayne
"finished the same with the help of the profits that grew by plays
used there before it was fully finished."[67] Access to the playhouse
was had chiefly by way of Finsbury Field and a passage made by Burbage
through the brick wall mentioned in the lease.[68]
[Footnote 67: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 135.]
[Footnote 68: For depositions to this effect see Halliwell-Phillipps,
_Outlines_, I, 350 ff.]
The terms under which the owners let it to the actors were simple: the
actors retained as their share the pennies paid at the outer doors for
general admission, and the proprietors received as their share the
money paid for seats or standings in the galleries.[69] Cuthbert
Burbage states in 1635: "The players that lived in those first times
had only the profits arising from the doors, but now the players
receive all the comings in at the doors to themselves, and half the
galleries."[70]
[Footnote 69: I suspect that the same terms were made with the actors
by the proprietors of the inn-playhouses.]
[Footnote 70: Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 317.]
Before the expiration of two years, or in the early summer of 1578,
Burbage and Brayne began to quarrel about the division of the money
which fell to their share. Brayne apparently thought that he should at
once be indemnified for all the money he had expended on the playhouse
in excess of Burbage; and he accused Burbage of "indirect
dealing"--there were even whispers of "a secret key" to the "common
box" in which the money was kept.[71] Finally they agreed to "submit
themselves to the order and arbitrament of certain persons for the
pacification thereof," and together they went to the shop of a notary
public to sign a bond agreeing to abide by the decision of the
arbitrators. There they "fell a reasoning together," in the course of
which Brayne asserted that he had disbursed in the Theatre "three
times at the least as much more as the sum then disbursed by the said
James Burbage." In the end Brayne unwisely hinted at "ill dealing" on
the part of Burbage, whereupon "Burbage did there strike him with his
fist, and so they went together by the ears, in so much," says the
notary, "that this deponent could hardly part them." After they were
parted, they signed a bond of L200 to abide by the decision of the
arbitrators. The arbitrators, John Hill and Richard Turnor, "men of
great honesty and credit," held their sessions "in the Temple church,"
whither they summoned witnesses. Finally, on July 12, 1578, after
"having thoroughly heard" both sides, they awarded that the profits
from the Theatre should be used first to pay the debts upon the
building, then to pay Brayne the money he had expended in excess of
Burbage, and thereafter to be shared "in divident equally between
them."[72] These conditions, however, were not observed, and the
failure to observe them led to much subsequent discord.
[Footnote 71: Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 142, 148.]
[Footnote 72: For the history of this quarrel, and for other details
of the award see Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 102, 119, 138, 142, 143,
148, 152.]
The arbitrators also decided that "if occasion should move them
[Burbage and Brayne] to borrow any sum of money for the payment of
their debts owing for any necessary use and thing concerning the said
Theatre, that then the said James Burbage and the said John Brayne
should _join_ in pawning or mortgageing of their estate and interest
of and in the same."[73] An occasion for borrowing money soon arose.
So on September 26, 1579, the two partners mortgaged the Theatre to
John Hide for the sum of L125 8_s._ 11_d._ At the end of a year, by
non-payment, they forfeited the mortgage, and the legal title to the
property passed to Hide. It seems, however, that because of some
special clause in the mortgage Hide was unable to expel Burbage and
Brayne, or to dispose of the property to others. Hence he took no
steps to seize the Theatre; but he constantly annoyed the occupants by
arrest and otherwise. This unfortunate transference of the title to
Hide was the cause of serious quarreling between the Burbages and the
Braynes, and finally led to much litigation.
[Footnote 73: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 103.]
In 1582 a more immediate disaster threatened the owners of the
Theatre. One Edmund Peckham laid claim to the land on which the
playhouse had been built, and brought suit against Alleyn for
recovery. More than that, Peckham tried to take actual possession of
the playhouse, so that Burbage "was fain to find men at his own charge
to keep the possession thereof from the said Peckham and his
servants," and was even "once in danger of his own life by keeping
possession thereof." As a result of this state of affairs, Burbage
"was much disturbed and troubled in his possession of the Theatre, and
could not quietly and peaceably enjoy the same. And therefore the
players forsook the said Theatre, to his great loss."[74] In order to
reimburse himself in some measure for this loss Burbage retained L30
of the rental due to Alleyn. The act led to a bitter quarrel with
Alleyn, and figured conspicuously in the subsequent litigation that
came near overwhelming the Theatre.
[Footnote 74: See Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 201, 239, 240, 242.]
In 1585 Burbage, having spent the stipulated L200 in repairing and
rebuilding the tenements on the premises, sought to renew the lease,
according to the original agreement, for the extended period of
twenty-one years. On November 20, 1585, he engaged three skilled
workmen to view the buildings and estimate the sum he had disbursed in
improvements. They signed a formal statement to the effect that in
their opinion at least L220 had been thus expended on the premises.
Burbage then "tendered unto the said Alleyn a new lease devised by his
counsel, ready written and engrossed, with labels and wax thereunto
affixed, agreeable to the covenant." But Alleyn refused to sign the
document. He maintained that the new lease was not a verbatim copy of
the old lease, that L200 had not been expended on the buildings, and
that Burbage was a bad tenant and owed him rent. In reality, Alleyn
wanted to extort a larger rental than L14 for the property, which had
greatly increased in value.
On July 18, 1586, Burbage engaged six men, all expert laborers, to
view the buildings again and estimate the cost of the improvements.
They expressed the opinion in writing that Burbage had expended at
least L240 in developing the property.[75] Still Alleyn refused to
sign an extension of the lease. His conduct must have been very
exasperating to the owner of the Theatre. Cuthbert Burbage tells us
that his father "did often in gentle manner solicit and require the
said Gyles Alleyn for making a new lease of the said premises
according to the purporte and effect of the said covenant." But
invariably Alleyn found some excuse for delay.
[Footnote 75: Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 229, 234, 228, 233.]
The death of Brayne, in August, 1586, led John Hide, who by reason of
the defaulted mortgage was legally the owner of the Theatre, to
redouble his efforts to collect his debt. He "gave it out in speech
that he had set over and assigned the said lease and bonds to one
George Clough, his ... father-in-law (but in truth he did not so),"
and "the said Clough, his father-in-law, did go about to put the said
defendant [Burbage] out of the Theatre, or at least did threaten to
put him out." As we have seen, there was a clause in the mortgage
which prevented Hide from ejecting Burbage;[76] yet Clough was able to
make so much trouble, "divers and sundry times" visiting the Theatre,
that at last Burbage undertook to settle the debt out of the profits
of the playhouse. As Robert Myles deposed in 1592, Burbage allowed the
widow of Brayne for "a certain time to take and receive the one-half
of the profits of the galleries of the said Theatre ... then on a
sudden he would not suffer her to receive any more of the profits
there, saying that he must take and receive all till he had paid the
debts. And then she was constrained, as his servant, to gather the
money and to deliver it unto him."[77]
[Footnote 76: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 55.]
[Footnote 77: _Ibid._, p. 105.]
For some reason, however, the debt was not settled, and Hide continued
his futile demands. Several times Burbage offered to pay the sum in
full if the title of the Theatre were made over to his son Cuthbert
Burbage; and Brayne's widow made similar offers in an endeavor to gain
the entire property for herself. But Hide, who seems to have been an
honest man, always declared that since Burbage and Brayne "did jointly
mortgage it unto him" he was honor-bound to assign the property back
to Burbage and the widow of Brayne jointly. So matters stood for a
while.
At last, however, in 1589, Hide declared that "since he had forborne
his money so long, he could do it no more, so as they that came first
should have it of him." Thereupon Cuthbert Burbage came bringing not
only the money in hand, but also a letter from his master and patron,
Walter Cape, gentleman usher to the Lord High Treasurer, requesting
Hide to make over the Theatre to Cuthbert, and promising in return to
assist Hide with the Lord Treasurer when occasion arose. Under this
pressure, Hide accepted full payment of his mortgage, and made over
the title of the property to Cuthbert Burbage. Thus Brayne's widow was
legally excluded from any share in the ownership of the Theatre. Myles
deposed, in 1592, that henceforth Burbage "would not suffer her to
meddle in the premises, but thrust her out of all."
This led at once to a suit, in which Robert Myles acted for the widow.
He received an order from the Court of Chancery in her favor, and
armed with this, and accompanied by two other persons, he came on
November 16, 1590, to Burbage's "dwelling house near the Theatre,"
called to the door Cuthbert Burbage, and in "rude and exclamable sort"
demanded "the moiety of the said Theatre." James Burbage "being within
the house, hearing a noise at the door, went to the door, and there
found his son, the said Cuthbert, and the said Myles speaking loud
together." Words were bandied, until finally Burbage, "dared by the
same Myles with great threats and words that he would do this and
could do that," lost his temper, and threatened to beat Myles off the
ground.[78]
[Footnote 78: Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 57, 60, 62.]
Next the widow, attended by Robert Myles and others, visited the home
of the Burbages "to require them to perform the said award" of the
court. They were met by James Burbage's wife, who "charged them to go
out of her grounds, or else she would make her son break their knaves'
heads." Aroused by this noise, "James Burbage, her husband, looking
out a window upon them, called the complainant [Widow Brayne]
murdering whore, and ... the others villaines, rascals, and knaves."
And when Mistress Brayne spoke of the order of the court, "he cryed
unto her, 'Go, go. A cart, a cart for you! I will obey no such order,
nor I care not for any such orders, and therefore it were best for you
and your companions to be packing betimes, for if my son [Cuthbert]
come he will thump you hence!'" Just then Cuthbert did "come home, and
in very hot sort bid them get thence, or else he would set them
forwards, saying 'I care for no such order. The Chancery shall not
give away what I have paid for.'" And so, after "great and horrible
oathes" by James Burbage and his son, the widow and her attendants
"went their ways."[79]
[Footnote 79: _Ibid._, p. 121.]
Receiving thus no satisfaction from these visits to the home of James
Burbage, the widow and Robert Myles came several times to the Theatre,
bearing the order of the court in their hands; but each time they were
railed upon and driven out. Finally, the widow, with her ever-faithful
adjutant Robert Myles, his son Ralph, and his business partner,
Nicholas Bishop, went "to the Theatre upon a play-day to stand at the
door that goeth up to the galleries of the said Theatre to take and
receive for the use of the said Margaret half of the money that should
be given to come up into the said gallery." In the Theatre they were
met by Richard Burbage, then about nineteen years old, and his mother,
who "fell upon the said Robert Myles and beat him with a broom staff,
calling him murdering knave." When Myles's partner, Bishop, ventured
to protest at this contemptuous treatment of the order of the court,
"the said Richard Burbage," so Bishop deposed, "scornfully and
disdainfully playing with this deponent's nose, said that if he dealt
in the matter, he would beat him also, and did challenge the field of
him at that time." One of the actors then coming in, John
Alleyn--brother of the immortal Edward Alleyn--"found the foresaid
Richard Burbage, the youngest son of the said James Burbage, there
with a broom staff in his hand; of whom when this deponent Alleyn
asked what stir was there, he answered in laughing phrase how they
came for a moiety, 'But,' quod he (holding up the said broom staff)
'I have, I think, delivered him a moiety with this, and sent them
packing.'" Alleyn thereupon warned the Burbages that Myles could bring
an action of assault and battery against them. "'Tush,' quod the
father, 'no, I warrant you; but where my son hath now beat him hence,
my sons, if they will be ruled by me, shall at their next coming
provide charged pistols, with powder and hempseed, to shoot them in
the legs.'"[80]
[Footnote 80: Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 63, 97, 100, 101, 114.]
But if the Burbages could laugh at the efforts of Myles and the widow
to secure a moiety of the Theatre from Cuthbert, they were seriously
troubled by the continued refusal of Gyles Alleyn to renew the lease.
James Burbage many times urged his landlord to fulfill the original
agreement, but in vain. At last, Alleyn, "according to his own will
and discretion, did cause a draft of a lease to be drawn, wherein were
inserted many unreasonable covenants." The new conditions imposed by
Alleyn were: (1) that Burbage should pay a rental of L24 instead of
L14 a year; (2) that he should use the Theatre as a place for acting
for only five years after the expiration of the original
twenty-one-year lease, and should then convert the building to other
uses; (3) that he should ultimately leave the building in the
possession of Alleyn.[81] The first and third conditions, though
unjust, Burbage was willing to accept, but the second condition--that
he should cease to use the Theatre for plays--he "utterly refused" to
consider.
[Footnote 81: See Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 195, 212, 216, 250, 258,
_et al._]
Finally, perceiving that it was useless to deal further with Alleyn,
he made plans to secure a new playhouse in the district of
Blackfriars, a district which, although within the city walls, was not
under the jurisdiction of the city authorities. He purchased there the
old Blackfriars refectory for L600, and then at great expense made the
refectory into a playhouse. But certain influential noblemen and
others living near by protested against this, and the Privy Council
ordered that the building should not be used as a public playhouse.
All this belongs mainly to the history of the Second Blackfriars
Playhouse, and for further details the reader is referred to the
chapter dealing with that theatre.
Shortly after the order of the Privy Council cited above, Burbage
died, just two months before the expiration of his lease from Alleyn;
and the Theatre with all its troubles passed to his son Cuthbert. By
every means in his power Cuthbert sought to induce Alleyn to renew the
lease: "Your said subject was thereof possessed, and being so
possessed, your said servant did often require the said Alleyn and
Sara his wife to make unto him the said new lease of the premises,
according to the agreement of the said indenture." Cuthbert's
importunity in the matter is clearly set forth in a deposition by
Henry Johnson, one of Alleyn's tenants. It was Alleyn's custom to come
to London at each of the four pay terms of the year, and stop at the
George Inn in Shoreditch to receive his rents; and on such occasions
Johnson often observed Cuthbert's entreaties with Alleyn. In his
deposition he says that he "knoweth that the said complainant
[Cuthbert Burbage] hath many times labored and entreated the defendant
[Gyles Alleyn] to make him a new lease of the premises in question,
for this deponent sayeth that many times when the defendant hath come
up to London to receive his rents, he, this deponent, hath been with
him paying him certain rent; and then he hath seen the plaintiff with
his landlord, paying his rent likewise; and then, finding opportunity,
the plaintiff would be intreating the defendant to make him a new
lease of the premises in question; and sayeth that it is at least
three years since [i.e., in 1597] he, this deponent, first heard the
plaintiff labor and entreat the defendant for a new lease."[82]
Cuthbert tells us that Alleyn did not positively refuse to renew the
lease, "but for some causes, which he feigned, did defer the same from
time to time, but yet gave hope to your subject, and affirmed that he
would make him such a lease."[83]
[Footnote 82: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 246.]
[Footnote 83: _Ibid._, p. 184.]
Cuthbert's anxiety in this matter is explained by the fact that the
old lease gave him the right to tear down the Theatre and carry away
the timber and other materials to his own use, provided he did so
before the expiration of the twenty-one years. Yet, relying on
Alleyn's promises to renew the lease, he "did forbear to pull downe
and carry away the timber and stuff employed for the said Theatre and
playing-house at the end of the said first term of one and twenty
years." A failure to renew the lease would mean, of course, the loss
of the building.
Alleyn, though deferring to sign a new lease, allowed Burbage to
continue in possession of the property at "the old rent of L14." Yet
the Theatre seems not to have been used for plays after the original
lease expired.[84] The Lord Chamberlain's Company, which had been
occupying the Theatre, and of which Richard Burbage was the chief
actor, had moved to the Curtain; and the author of _Skialetheia_,
printed in 1598, refers to the old playhouse as empty: "But see,
yonder, one, like the unfrequented Theatre, walks in dark silence and
vast solitude."[85]
[Footnote 84: The lease expired on April 13, 1597; on July 28 the
Privy Council closed all playhouses until November. The references to
the Theatre in _The Remembrancia_ (see The Malone Society's
_Collections_, I, 78) do not necessarily imply that the building was
then actually used by the players.]
[Footnote 85: The same fact is revealed in the author's remark, "If my
dispose persuade me to a play, I'le to the Rose or Curtain," for at
this time only the Chamberlain's Men and the Admiral's Men were
allowed to play.]
To Cuthbert Burbage such a state of affairs was intolerable, and on
September 29, 1598, he made a new appeal to Alleyn. Alleyn proffered a
lease already drawn up, but Cuthbert would not "accept thereof"
because of the "very unreasonable covenants therein contained."[86]
[Footnote 86: Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 216, 249.]
Shortly after this fruitless interview, or late in 1598, Gyles Alleyn
resolved to take advantage of the fact that Cuthbert Burbage had not
removed the Theatre before the expiration of the first twenty-one
years. He contended that since Cuthbert had "suffered the same there
to continue till the expiration of the said term ... the right and
interest of the said Theatre was both in law and conscience absolutely
vested" now in himself; accordingly he planned "to pull down the same,
and to convert the wood and timber thereof to some better use for the
benefit" of himself.[87]
[Footnote 87: _Ibid._, pp. 277, 288.]
But, unfortunately for Alleyn, Cuthbert Burbage "got intelligence" of
this purpose, and at once set himself to the task of saving his
property. He and his brother Richard, the great actor, took into their
confidence the chief members of the Lord Chamberlain's Company, then
performing at the Curtain Playhouse, namely William Shakespeare, John
Heminges, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, and William Kempe. These
men agreed to form with the Burbages a syndicate to finance the
erection of a new playhouse. The two Burbages agreed to bear one-half
the expense, including the timber and other materials of the old
Theatre, and the five actors promised to supply the other half.
Together they leased a suitable plot of land on the Bankside near
Henslowe's Rose, the lease dating from December 25, 1598. These
details having been arranged, it remained only for the Burbages to
save their building from the covetousness of Alleyn.
On the night of December 28, 1598,[88] Alleyn being absent in the
country, Cuthbert Burbage, his brother Richard, his friend William
Smith, "of Waltham Cross, in the County of Hartford, gentleman," Peter
Street, "cheefe carpenter," and twelve others described as "laborers
such as wrought for wages," gathered at the Theatre and began to tear
down the building. We learn that the widow of James Burbage "was
there, and did see the doing thereof, and liked well of it";[89] and
we may suspect that at some time during the day Shakespeare and the
other actors were present as interested spectators.
[Footnote 88: The date, January 20, 1599, seems to be an error.]
[Footnote 89: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 238.]
The episode is thus vividly described by the indignant Gyles Allen:
The said Cuthbert Burbage, having intelligence of your
subject's purpose herein, and unlawfully combining and
confederating himself with the said Richard Burbage and one
Peter Street, William Smith, and diverse other persons to
the number of twelve, to your subject unknown, did about
the eight and twentieth day of December, in the one and
fortieth year of your highness reign, and sithence your
highness last and general pardon, by the confederacy
aforesaid, riotously assembled themselves together, and then
and there armed themselves with diverse and many unlawful
and offensive weapons, as namely swords, daggers, bills,
axes, and such like, and so armed did then repair unto the
said Theatre, and then and there armed as aforesaid, in very
riotous, outrageous, and forceable manner, and contrary to
the laws of your highness realm, attempted to pull down the
said Theatre. Whereupon, diverse of your subjects, servants
and farmers, then going about in peaceable manner to procure
them to desist from that unlawful enterprise, they, the said
riotous persons aforesaid, notwithstanding procured then
therein with great violence, not only then and there
forcibly and riotously resisting your subjects, servants,
and farmers, but also then and there pulling, breaking, and
throwing down the said Theatre in very outrageous, violent,
and riotous sort.[90]
[Footnote 90: Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 278-79. This document was
discovered by J.O. Halliwell-Phillipps, who printed extracts in his
_Outlines_. See also Ordish, _Early London Theatres_, pp. 75-76.]
The workmen, under the expert direction of Peter Street, carried the
timber and other materials of the old Theatre to the tract of land on
the Bankside recently leased by the new syndicate--as Gyles Alleyn
puts it, "did then also in most forcible and riotous manner take and
carry away from thence all the wood and timber thereof unto the
Bankside, in the Parish of St. Mary Overies, and there erected a new
playhouse with the said timber and wood."
The playhouse thus erected was, of course, an entirely new structure.
Nearly a quarter of a century had elapsed since James Burbage designed
the old Theatre, during which time a great development had taken place
both in histrionic art and in play writing; and, no doubt, many
improvements were possible in the stage and in the auditorium to
provide better facilities for the actors and greater comfort for the
spectators. In designing such improvements the architect had the
advice and help of the actors, including Shakespeare; and he succeeded
in producing a playhouse that was a model of excellence. The name
selected by the syndicate for their new building was "The Globe." For
further details as to its construction, and for its subsequent
history, the reader is referred to the chapter dealing with that
building.
When Gyles Alleyn learned that the Burbages had demolished the Theatre
and removed the timber to the Bankside, he was deeply incensed, not
only at the loss of the building, but also, no doubt, at being
completely outwitted. At once he instituted suit against Cuthbert
Burbage; but he was so intemperate in his language and so reckless in
his charges that he weakened his case. The suit dragged for a few
years, was in part referred to Francis Bacon, and finally in the
summer of 1601 was dismissed. Thus the history of the first London
playhouse, which is chiefly the history of quarrels and litigation,
came to a close.
It is not possible now to indicate exactly the stay of the different
troupes at the Theatre; the evidence is scattered and incomplete, and
the inferences to be drawn are often uncertain.
When the building was opened in 1576, it was, no doubt, occupied by
the Earl of Leicester's troupe, of which Burbage was the manager, and
for which, presumably, the structure had been designed. Yet other
troupes of players may also have been allowed to use the
building--when Leicester's Men were touring the provinces, or,
possibly, on days when Leicester's Men did not act. This arrangement
lasted about six years.
In 1582 the use of the Theatre was interrupted by the interference of
Peckham. For a long time the actors "could not enjoy the premises,"
and Burbage was forced to keep Peckham's servants out of the building
with an armed guard night and day. As a result of this state of
affairs, Leicester's troupe was dissolved; "many of the players," we
are told, were driven away, and the rest "forsook the said Theatre."
The last notice of these famous players is a record of their
performance at Court on February 10, 1583.
Shortly after this, in March, 1583, Tilney, the Master of the Revels,
organized under royal patronage a new company called the Queen's Men.
For this purpose he selected twelve of the best actors of the realm,
including some of the members of Leicester's company.[91] The two
best-known actors in the new organization were the Queen's favorite
comedian, Richard Tarleton, the immortal "Lord of Mirth," and John
Lanham, the leader and apparently the manager of the troupe. James
Burbage, who may by this time, if not before, have retired from
acting, was not included.
[Footnote 91: For a list of the Queen's Men see Wallace, _op. cit._,
p. 11.]
The newly organized Queen's Men in all probability occupied the
Theatre which had been left vacant by the dissolution of Leicester's
company. Mr. Wallace denies this, mainly on the evidence of a permit
issued by the Lord Mayor, November 28, 1583, granting the Queen's Men
the privilege of acting "at the sign of the Bull [Inn] in Bishopgate
Street, and the sign of the Bell [Inn] in Gracious Street, and nowhere
else within this city." But this permit, I think, lends scant support
to Mr. Wallace's contention. The Lord Mayor had no authority to issue
a license for the Queen's Men to play at the Theatre, for that
structure was outside the jurisdiction of the city. The Privy Council
itself, no doubt, had issued such a general license when the company
was organized under royal patronage.[92] And now, ten months later,
on November 26, 1583, the Council sends to the Lord Mayor a request
"that Her Majesty's players may be suffered to play ... within the
city and liberties _between this and shrovetide next_"[93]--in other
words, during the winter season when access to the Theatre was
difficult. It was customary for troupes to seek permission to act
within the city during the winter months.[94] Thus the Queen's Men, in
a petition written probably in the autumn of the following year, 1584,
requested the Privy Council to dispatch "favorable letters unto the
Lord Mayor of London to permit us to exercise within the city," and
the Lord Mayor refused, with the significant remark that "if in winter
... the foulness of season do hinder the passage into the fields to
play, the remedy is ill conceived to bring them into London."[95]
Obviously the Queen's Men were seeking permission to play in the city
only during the cold winter months; during the balmy spring, summer,
and autumn months--for actors the best season of the year--they
occupied their commodious playhouse in "the fields."
[Footnote 92: Such a license would include also permission to act in
the provinces. This latter was soon needed, for shortly after their
organization the Queen's Men were driven by the plague to tour the
provinces. They were in Cambridge on July 9, and probably returned to
London shortly after. See Murray, _English Dramatic Companies_, I, 8.]
[Footnote 93: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 66.]
[Footnote 94: Lord Hunsdon, on October 8, 1594, requested the Lord
Mayor to permit the Chamberlain's Men "to play this winter time within
the city at the Cross Keys in Gracious Street." See The Malone
Society's _Collections_, I, 67.]
[Footnote 95: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 170, 172.]
That this playhouse for a time, at least, was the Theatre is indicated
by several bits of evidence. Thus the author of _Martin's Month's
Mind_ (1589) speaks of "twittle-twattles that I had learned in
ale-houses and at the Theatre of Lanham and his fellows." Again, Nash,
in _Pierce Penniless_ (1592), writes: "Tarleton at the Theatre made
jests of him"; Harrington, in _The Metamorphosis of Ajax_ (1596):
"Which word was after admitted into the Theatre with great applause,
by the mouth of Master Tarleton"; and the author of _Tarlton's Newes
out of Purgatory_ (_c._ 1589) represents Tarleton as connected with
the Theatre. Now, unless Lanham, Tarleton, and their "fellows" usually
or sometimes acted at the Theatre, it is hard to understand these and
other similar passages.
The following episode tends to prove the same thing. On June 18, 1584,
William Fleetwood, Recorder, wrote to Lord Burghley:[96]
Right honorable and my very good lord. Upon Whitsunday there
was a very good sermon preached at the new churchyard near
Bethelem, whereat my Lord Mayor was with his brethren; and
by reason no plays were the same day, all the city was
quiet. Upon Monday I was at the Court.... That night I
returned to London and found all the wards full of watchers;
the cause thereof was for that very near the Theatre or
Curtain, at the time of the plays, there lay a prentice
sleeping upon the grass; and one Challes, at Grostock, did
turn upon the toe upon the belly of the same prentice.
Whereupon the apprentice start up.
[Footnote 96: The letter is printed in full in The Malone Society's
_Collections_, I, 164.]
In the altercation that followed, Challes remarked that "prentices
were but the scum of the world." This led to a general rising of
apprentices, and much disorder throughout the city. Fleetwood records
the upshot thus:
Upon Sunday my Lord [Mayor] sent two aldermen to the court
for the suppressing and pulling down of the Theatre and
Curtain. All the Lords [of the Privy Council] agreed
thereunto saving my Lord Chamberlain and Mr.
Vice-Chamberlain. But we obtained a letter to suppress them
all. Upon the same night I sent for the Queen's Players [at
the Theatre?] and my Lord Arundel's Players [at the
Curtain?] and they all willingly obeyed the Lords's letters.
The chiefest of Her Highness's Players advised me to send
for the owner of the Theatre [James Burbage[97]], who was a
stubborn fellow, and to bind him. I did so. He sent me word
he was my Lord of Hundson's man, and that he would not come
at me; but he would in the morning ride to my lord.
[Footnote 97: This could not have been Hide, as usually stated. Hide
had nothing to do with the management of the Theatre, and was not "my
Lord of Hunsdon's man." Hide's connection with the Theatre as sketched
in this chapter shows the absurdity of such an interpretation of the
document.]
The natural inference from all this is that the Queen's Men and Lord
Arundel's Men were then playing _outside the city_ where they could be
controlled only by "the Lords's Letters"; that the Queen's Men were
occupying the Theatre, and that James Burbage was (as we know) not a
member of that company, but merely stood to them in the relation of
"owner of the Theatre."
What Burbage meant by calling himself "my Lord of Hunsdon's man" is
not clear. Mr. Wallace contends that when Leicester's Men were
dissolved, Burbage organized "around the remnants of Leicester's
Company" a troupe under the patronage of Lord Hunsdon, and that this
troupe, and not the Queen's Men, occupied the Theatre thereafter.[98]
But we hear of Hunsdon's Men at Ludlow in July, 1582; and we find them
presenting a play at Court on December 27, 1582. Since Leicester's
troupe is recorded as acting at Court as late as February 10, 1583, it
seems unlikely that Mr. Wallace's theory as to the origin of Hunsdon's
Men is true. It may be, however, that after the dissolution of
Leicester's Men, Burbage associated himself with Hunsdon's Men, and it
may be that he allowed that relatively unimportant company to occupy
the Theatre for a short time. Hunsdon's Men seem to have been mainly a
traveling troupe; Mr. Murray states that notices of them "occur
frequently in the provinces," but we hear almost nothing of them in
London. Indeed, at the time of the trouble described by Fleetwood,
Hunsdon's Men were in Bath.[99] If Burbage was a member of the troupe,
he certainly did not accompany them on their extended tours; and when
they played in London, if they used the Theatre, they must have used
it jointly with the Queen's Men.
[Footnote 98: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 11.]
[Footnote 99: Murray, _English Dramatic Companies_, I, 321.]
Late in 1585 the Theatre was affiliated with the adjacent Curtain.
Burbage and Brayne made an agreement with the proprietor of that
playhouse whereby the Curtain might be used "as an easore" [easer?] to
the Theatre, and "the profits of the said two playhouses might for
seven years space be in divident between them." This agreement, we
know, was carried out, but whether it led to an exchange of companies,
or what effect it had upon the players, we cannot say. Possibly to
this period of joint management may be assigned the witticism of Dick
Tarleton recorded as having been uttered "at the Curtain" where the
Queen's Men were then playing.[100] It may even be that as one result
of the affiliation of the two houses the Queen's Men were transferred
to the Curtain.
[Footnote 100: _Tarlton's Jests_, ed. by J.O. Halliwell, p. 16.
Tarleton died in 1588.]
In 1590, as we learn from the deposition of John Alleyn, the Theatre
was being used by the Admiral's Men.[101] This excellent company had
been formed early in 1589 by the separation of certain leading players
from Worcester's Men, and it had probably occupied the Theatre since
its organization. Its star actor, Edward Alleyn, was then at the
height of his powers, and was producing with great success Marlowe's
splendid plays. We may suppose that the following passage refers to
the performance of the Admiral's Men at the Theatre:
He had a head of hair like one of my devils in _Dr.
Faustus_, when the old Theatre crackt and frightened the
audience.[102]
[Footnote 101: Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 101, 126.]
[Footnote 102: _The Black Booke_, 1604.]
Late in 1590 the Admiral's Men seem to have been on bad terms with
Burbage,[103] and when John Alleyn made his deposition, February 6,
1592, they had certainly left the Theatre. Mr. Greg, from entirely
different evidence, has concluded that they were dispersed in
1591,[104] and this conclusion is borne out by the legal document
cited above.
[Footnote 103: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 101.]
[Footnote 104: Greg, _Henslowe's Diary_, II, 83. The Admiral's Men
were reorganized in 1594, and occupied the Rose under Henslowe's
management.]
The next company that we can definitely associate with the Theatre was
the famous Lord Chamberlain's Men. On April 16, 1594, Lord Strange,
the Earl of Derby, died, and the chief members of his troupe--William
Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, John Heminges, William Kempe, Thomas
Pope, George Bryan, and Augustine Phillips--organized a new company
under the patronage of the Lord Chamberlain. For ten days, in June,
1594, they acted at Newington Butts under the management of Philip
Henslowe, then went, probably at once, to the Theatre, which they made
their home until the Burbage lease of the property expired in the
spring of 1597. Here, among other famous plays, they produced the
original _Hamlet_, thus referred to by Lodge in _Wit's Miserie_, 1596:
He looks as pale as the visard of the ghost which cries so
miserably at the Theatre, like an oyster-wife, "Hamlet,
revenge!"
And here, too, they presented all of Shakespeare's early masterpieces.
Their connection with the building ceased in 1597 at the expiration of
the Burbage lease; but their association with the proprietors of the
Theatre was permanent. Their subsequent history, as also the history
of the Burbage brothers, will be found in the chapters dealing with
the Globe and the Second Blackfriars.[105]
[Footnote 105: For other but unimportant references to the Theatre see
The Malone Society's _Collections_, vol. I: disorder at, October,
1577, p. 153; disorder at, on Sunday, April, 1580, p. 46; fencing
allowed at, July, 1582, p. 57; fencing forbidden at, May, 1583, p. 62;
to be closed during infection, May, 1583, p. 63; complaint against, by
the Lord Mayor, September, 1594, p. 76. And see Halliwell-Phillipps,
_Outlines_, I, 363, for a special performance there by a "virgin,"
February 22, 1582.]
CHAPTER IV
THE CURTAIN
Although James Burbage was, as his son asserted, "the first builder of
playhouses," a second public playhouse followed hard on the Theatre,
probably within twelve months. It was erected a short distance to the
south of the Theatre,--that is, nearer the city,--and, like that
building, it adjoined Finsbury Field.[106] To the two playhouses the
audiences came trooping over the meadows, in "great multidudes," the
Lord Mayor tells us; and the author of _Tarlton's Newes out of
Purgatory_ (_c._ 1589) describes their return to London thus: "With
that I waked, and saw such concourse of people through the fields that
I knew the play was done."[107]
[Footnote 106: The site is probably marked by Curtain Court in
Chasserau's survey of 1745, reproduced on page 79.]
[Footnote 107: Ed. by J.O. Halliwell, for The Shakespeare Society
(1844), p. 105.]
The new playhouse derived its name from the Curtain estate, on which
it was erected.[108] This estate was formerly the property of the
Priory of Holywell, and was described in 1538 as "scituata et
existentia extra portas ejusdem nuper monasterii prope pasturam dicte
nuper Priorisse, vocatam _the Curteine_."[109] Why it was so called
is not clear. The name may have been derived from some previous owner
of the property; it may, as Collier thought, have come from some early
association with the walls (_curtains_) or defenses of the city; or,
it may have come, as Tomlins suggests, from the mediaeval Latin
_cortina_, meaning a court, a close, a farm enclosure.[110] Whatever
its origin--the last explanation seems the most plausible--the
interesting point is that it had no connection whatever with a stage
curtain.
[Footnote 108: The Rose and the Red Bull derived their names in a
similar way from the estates on which they were erected.]
[Footnote 109: Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 364.]
[Footnote 110: Tomlins, _Origin of the Curtain Theatre, and Mistakes
Regarding It_, in The Shakespeare Society's Papers (1844), p. 29.]
The building was probably opened to the London public in the summer or
autumn of 1577. The first reference to it is found in T[homas]
W[hite]'s _Sermon Preached at Pawles Crosse on Sunday the Thirde of
November, 1577_: "Behold the sumptuous theatre houses, a continual
monument of London's prodigality and folly";[111] and a reference to
it by name appears in Northbrooke's _A Treatise_, licensed December,
1577: "Those places, also, which are made up and builded for such
plays and interludes, as the Theatre and Curtain."[112]
[Footnote 111: J.D. Wilson, _The Cambridge History of English
Literature_, VI, 435, says that this sermon was "delivered at Paul's
cross on 9 December, 1576 and, apparently, repeated on 3 November in
the following year." This is incorrect; White did preach a sermon at
Paul's Cross on December 9, but not the sermon from which this
quotation is drawn.]
[Footnote 112: Ed. by J.P. Collier, for The Shakespeare Society
(1843), p. 85.]
Like the Theatre, the Curtain was a peculiarly shaped building,
specially designed for acting; "those playhouses that are erected and
built _only for such purposes_ ... namely the Curtain and the
Theatre,"[113] writes the Privy Council; and the German traveler,
Samuel Kiechel, who visited London in 1585, describes them as
"_sonderbare_" structures. They are usually mentioned together, and in
such a way as to suggest similarity of shape as well as of purpose. We
may, I think, reasonably suppose that the Curtain was in all essential
details a copy of Burbage's Theatre.[114] Presumably, then, it was
polygonal (or circular) in shape,[115] was constructed of timber, and
was finished on the outside with lime and plaster. The interior, as
the evidence already cited in the chapter on the Theatre shows,
consisted of three galleries surrounding an open yard. There was a
platform projecting into the middle of the yard, with dressing-rooms
at the rear, "heavens" overhead, and a flagpole rising above the
"heavens." That some sign was displayed in front of the door is
likely. Malone writes: "The original sign hung out at this playhouse
(as Mr. Steevens has observed) was the painting of a curtain
striped."[116] Aubrey records that Ben Jonson "acted and wrote, but
both ill, at the Green Curtain, a kind of nursery or obscure playhouse
somewhere in the suburbs, I think towards Shoreditch or
Clerkenwell."[117] By "at the Green Curtain" Aubrey means, of course,
"at the sign of the Green Curtain"; but the evidence of Steevens and
of Aubrey is too vague and uncertain to warrant any definite
conclusions.
[Footnote 113: Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_, XXVII, 313.]
[Footnote 114: It seems, however, to have been smaller than the
Theatre.]
[Footnote 115: Johannes de Witt describes the Theatre and the Curtain
along with the Swan and the Rose as "amphitheatra" (see page 167). It
is quite possible that Shakespeare refers to the Curtain in the
Prologue to _Henry V_ as "this wooden O," though the reference may be
to the Globe.]
[Footnote 116: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 54; cf. also Ellis, _The
Parish of St. Leonard_.]
[Footnote 117: Did Steevens base his statement on this passage in
Aubrey?]
Of the early history of the Curtain we know little, mainly because it
was not, like certain other playhouses, the subject of extensive
litigation. We do not even know who planned and built it. The first
evidence of its ownership appears fifteen years after its erection, in
some legal documents connected with the Theatre.[118] In July, 1592,
Henry Lanman, described as "of London, gentleman, of the age of 54
years," deposed: "That true it is about 7 years now shall be this next
winter, they, the said Burbage and Brayne, having the profits of plays
made at the Theatre, and this deponent having the profits of the plays
done at the house called the Curtain near to the same, the said
Burbage and Brayne, taking the Curtain as an esore[119] to their
playhouse, did of their own motion move this deponent that he would
agree that the profits of the said two playhouses might for seven
years space be in divident between them."[120]
[Footnote 118: Brayne _v._ Burbage, 1592, printed in full by Wallace,
_The First London Theatre_, pp. 109-52. See especially pp. 126, 148.]
[Footnote 119: Easer?]
[Footnote 120: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 148; cf. p. 126.]
[Illustration: THE SITE OF THE CURTAIN PLAYHOUSE
From _An Actual Survey of the Parish of St Leonard in Shoreditch taken
in the year 1745_ by Peter Chasserau, Surveyor. The key to the map
gives "93" as Curtain Court, probably the site of the old playhouse,
"87" as New Inn Yard, and "94" as Holywell Court, both interesting in
connection with Burbage's Theatre. (Redrawn from the original for this
volume.)]
From this statement it is evident that Henry Lanman was the sole
proprietor of the Curtain as far back as 1585, and the presumption is
that his proprietorship was of still earlier date. This presumption is
strengthened by the fact that in a sale of the Curtain estate early in
1582, he is specifically mentioned as having a tenure of an "edifice
or building" erected in the Curtain Close, that is, that section of
the estate next to the Field, on which the playhouse was built.[121]
Since Lanman is not mentioned as having any other property on the
estate, the "edifice or building" referred to was probably the
playhouse. The document gives no indication as to how long he had held
possession of the "edifice," but the date of sale, March, 1582,
carries us back to within four years of the erection of the Curtain,
and it seems reasonable to suppose, though of course we cannot be
sure, that Lanman had been proprietor of the building from the very
beginning.[122]
[Footnote 121: Tomlins, _op. cit._, pp. 29-31.]
[Footnote 122: Of this Henry Lanman we know nothing beyond the facts
here revealed. Possibly he was a brother of the distinguished actor
John Lanman (the name is variously spelled Lanman, Laneman, Lenmann,
Laneham, Laynman, Lanham), one of the chief members of Leicester's
troupe, and one of the twelve men selected in 1583 to form the Queen's
Men. But speculation of this sort is vain. It is to be hoped that in
the future some student will investigate the life of this obscure
theatrical manager, and trace his connection with the early history of
the drama.]
Certain records of the sale of the Curtain estate shortly before and
shortly after the erection of the playhouse are preserved, but these
throw very little light upon the playhouse itself. We learn that on
February 20, 1567, Lord Mountjoy and his wife sold the estate to
Maurice Longe, clothworker, and his son William Longe, for the sum of
L60; and that on August 23, 1571, Maurice Longe and his wife sold it
to the then Lord Mayor, Sir William Allyn, for the sum of L200. In
both documents the property is described in the same words: "All that
house, tenement or lodge commonly called the _Curtain_, and all that
parcel of ground and close, walled and enclosed with a brick wall on
the west and north parts, called also the _Curtain Close_." The lodge
here referred to, generally known as "Curtain House," was on, or very
near, Holywell Lane;[123] the playhouse, as already stated, was
erected in the close near the Field.[124]
[Footnote 123: Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 365.]
[Footnote 124: The Privy Council on March 10, 1601, refers to it as
"The Curtaine in Moorefeildes"; in ancient times, says Stow,
Moorefields extended to Holywell. See Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_,
I, 364.]
How long Sir William Allyn held the property, or why it reverted to
the Longe family, we do not know. But on March 18, 1582, we find
William Longe, the son of "Maurice Longe, citizen and clothworker, of
London, deceased," selling the same property, described in the same
words, to one "Thomas Harberte, citizen and girdler, of London." In
the meantime, of course, the playhouse had been erected, but no clear
or direct mention of the building is made in the deed of sale.
Possibly it was included in the conventionally worded phrase: "and all
and singular other messuages, tenements, edifices, and buildings, with
all and singular their appurtenances, erected and builded upon the
said close called the Curtain."[125] Among the persons named as
holding tenures of the above-mentioned "edifices and buildings" in the
close was Henry Lanman. It seems not improbable, therefore, that the
Curtain, like the Theatre, was erected on leased ground.
[Footnote 125: Tomlins, _op. cit._, p. 31.]
It is impossible to give a connected history of the Curtain. Most of
the references to it that we now possess are invectives in early
puritanical writings, or bare mention, along with other playhouses, in
letters or ordinances of the Privy Council and the Lord Mayor. Such
references as these do not much help us in determining what companies
successively occupied the building, or what varying fortunes marked
its ownership and management. Yet a few scattered facts have sifted
down to us, and these I have arranged in chronological order.
On the afternoon of April 6, 1580, an earthquake, especially severe in
Holywell, shook the building during the performance of a play, and
greatly frightened the audience. Munday says merely: "at the
playhouses the people came running forth, surprised with great
astonishment";[126] but Stubbes, the Puritan, who saw in the event a
"fearful judgment of God," writes with fervor: "The like judgment
almost did the Lord show unto them a little before, being assembled at
their theatres to see their bawdy interludes and other trumperies
practised, for He caused the earth mightily to shake and quaver, as
though all would have fallen down; whereat the people, sore amazed,
some leapt down from the top of the turrets, pinnacles, and towers
where they stood, to the ground, whereof some had their legs broke,
some their arms, some their backs, some hurt one where, some another,
and many score crushed and bruised."[127]
[Footnote 126: _View of Sundry Examples_, 1580.]
[Footnote 127: _The Anatomy of Abuses_, ed. F.J. Furnivall, New
Shakspere Society, p. 180. For other descriptions of this earthquake
see Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 369.]
The disturbance at the Theatre and the Curtain in 1584, when one
Challes "did turn upon the toe upon the belly of" an apprentice
"sleeping upon the grass" in the Field near by, has been mentioned in
the preceding chapter. If the interpretation of the facts there given
is correct, Lord Arundel's Players were then occupying the Curtain.
In the winter of 1585 Lanman entered into his seven years' agreement
with Burbage and Brayne by which the Theatre and the Curtain were
placed under one management, and the profits shared "in divident
between them." This agreement was faithfully kept by both parties, but
there is no evidence that after the expiration of the seven years, in
the winter of 1592, the affiliation was continued. What effect the
arrangement had upon the companies of players occupying the two
theatres we cannot now determine. To this period, however, I would
assign the appearance of the Queen's Men at the Curtain.[128]
[Footnote 128: _Tarlton's Jests_, ed. by J.O. Halliwell for the
Shakespeare Society (1844), p. 16. For a discussion see the preceding
chapter on the Theatre, p. 72.]
On July 28, 1597, as a result of the performance of Thomas Nashe's
_The Isle of Dogs_, by Pembroke's Men at the Swan,[129] the Privy
Council ordered the plucking down of "the Curtain and the
Theatre."[130] The order, however, was not carried out, and in October
plays were allowed again as before.
[Footnote 129: For details see the chapter on the Swan.]
[Footnote 130: Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_, XXVII, 313.]
At this time the Lord Chamberlain's men were at the Curtain, having
recently moved thither in consequence of the difficulties Cuthbert
Burbage was having with Gyles Alleyn over the Theatre property. During
the stay of the Chamberlain's Company, which numbered among its
members William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, William Kempe (who had
succeeded Tarleton in popular favor as a clown), John Heminges, Thomas
Pope, and Augustine Phillips, the playhouse probably attained its
greatest distinction. Both Shakespeare and Jonson wrote plays for the
troupe; _Romeo and Juliet_, we are told, "won Curtain plaudities," as
no doubt did many other of Shakespeare's early masterpieces; and
Jonson's _Every Man in His Humour_ created such enthusiasm here on its
first performance as to make its author famous.[131]
[Footnote 131: Marston, _The Scourge of Villainy_ (1598); Bullen, _The
Works of John Marston_, III, 372.]
In the summer of 1599 the Chamberlain's Men moved into their splendid
new home, the Globe, on the Bankside, and the Curtain thus abandoned
fell on hard times. Perhaps it was let occasionally to traveling
troupes; in Jeaffreson's _Middlesex County Records_, under the date of
March 11, 1600, is a notice of the arrest of one William Haukins
"charged with a purse taken at a play at the Curtain." But shortly
after, in April, 1600, when Henslowe and Alleyn began to erect their
splendid new Fortune Playhouse, they were able to give the impression
to Tilney, the Master of the Revels, and to the Privy Council, that
the Curtain was to be torn down. Thus in the Council's warrant for the
building of the Fortune, dated April 8, 1600, we read that "another
house is [to be] pulled down instead of it";[132] and when the
Puritans later made vigorous protests against the erection of the
Fortune, the Council defended itself by stating that "their Lordships
have been informed by Edmund Tilney, Esquire, Her Majesty's servant,
and Master of the Revels, that the house now in hand to be built by
the said Edward Alleyn is not intended to increase the number of the
playhouses, but to be instead of another, namely the Curtain, which is
either to be ruined and plucked down, or to be put to some other good
use."[133]
[Footnote 132: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 52.]
[Footnote 133: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 82.]
All this talk of the Curtain's being plucked down or devoted to other
uses suggests a contemplated change in the ownership or management of
the building. We do not know when Lanman died (in 1592 he described
himself as fifty-four years of age),[134] but we do know that at some
date prior to 1603 the Curtain had passed into the hands of a
syndicate. When this syndicate was organized, or who constituted its
members, we cannot say. Thomas Pope, in his will, dated July 22, 1603,
mentions his share "of, in, and to all that playhouse, with the
appurtenances, called the Curtain";[135] and John Underwood, in his
will, dated October 4, 1624, mentions his "part or share ... in the
said playhouses called the Blackfriars, the Globe on the Bankside, and
the Curtain."[136] It may be significant that both Pope and Underwood
were sharers also in the Globe. Since, however, further information
is wanting, it is useless to speculate. We can only say that at some
time after the period of Lanman's sole proprietorship, the Curtain
passed into the hands of a group of sharers; and that after a
discussion in 1600 of demolishing the building or devoting it to other
uses, it entered upon a long and successful career.
[Footnote 134: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 148.]
[Footnote 135: J.P. Collier, _Lives of the Original Actors in
Shakespeare's Plays_, p. 127. In exactly the same words Pope disposed
of his share in the Globe.]
[Footnote 136: _Ibid._, p. 230.]
On May 10, 1601, "the actors at the Curtain"[137] gave serious offense
by representing on the stage persons "of good desert and quality, that
are yet alive, under obscure manner, but yet in such sort as all the
hearers may take notice both of the matter and the persons that are
meant thereby." The Privy Council ordered the Justices of the Peace to
examine into the case and to punish the offenders.[138]
[Footnote 137: Possibly Derby's Men.]
[Footnote 138: See Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_, XXXI, 346.]
Early in 1604 a draft of a royal patent for Queen Anne's Players--who
had hitherto been under the patronage of Worcester[139]--gives those
players permission to act "within their now usual houses, called the
Curtain, and the Boar's Head."[140] On April 9, 1604, the Privy
Council authorized the three companies of players that had been taken
under royal patronage "to exercise their plays in their several and
usual houses for that purpose, and no other, viz., the Globe,
scituate in Maiden Lane on the Bankside in the County of Surrey, the
Fortune in Golding Lane, and the Curtain in Holywell."[141] The King's
Men (the Burbage-Shakespeare troupe) occupied the Globe; Prince
Henry's Men (the Henslowe-Alleyn troupe), the Fortune; and Queen
Anne's Men, the Curtain.
[Footnote 139: The company was formed by an amalgamation of Oxford's
and Worcester's Men in 1602. See The Malone Society's _Collections_,
I, 85.]
[Footnote 140: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 266.]
[Footnote 141: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 61; Dasent, _Acts of the
Privy Council_, XXXII, 511.]
But the Queen's Men were probably dissatisfied with the Curtain. It
was small and antiquated, and it must have suffered by comparison with
the more splendid Globe and Fortune. So the Queen's players had built
for themselves a new and larger playhouse, called "The Red Bull." This
was probably ready for occupancy in 1605, yet it is impossible to say
exactly when the Queen's Men left the Curtain; their patent of April
15, 1609, gives them permission to act "within their now usual houses
called the Red Bull, in Clerkenwell, and the Curtain in
Holywell."[142] It may be that they retained control of the Curtain in
order to prevent competition.
[Footnote 142: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 270.]
What company occupied the Curtain after Queen Anne's Men finally
surrendered it is not clear. Mr. Murray is of the opinion that Prince
Charles's Men moved into the Curtain "about December, 1609, or early
in 1610."[143]
[Footnote 143: _English Dramatic Companies_, I, 230.]
In 1613 "a company of young men" acted _The Hector of Germany_ "at
the Red Bull and at the Curtain." Such plays, however, written and
acted by amateurs, were not uncommon, and no significance can be
attached to the event.
In 1622, as we learn from the Herbert Manuscripts, the Curtain was
being occupied by Prince Charles's Servants.[144] In the same year the
author of _Vox Graculi, or The Jack Daw's Prognostication for 1623_,
refers to it thus: "If company come current to the Bull and Curtain,
there will be more money gathered in one afternoon than will be given
to Kingsland Spittle in a whole month; also, if at this time about the
hours of four and five it wax cloudy and then rain downright, they
shall sit dryer in the galleries than those who are the understanding
men in the yard."
[Footnote 144: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 59; cf. Chalmers's
_Supplemental Apology_, p. 213, note _y_. Murray gives the date
incorrectly as 1623.]
Prince Charles's Men did not remain long at the Curtain. At some date
between June 10 and August 19, 1623, they moved to the larger and more
handsome Red Bull.[145] After this, so far as I can discover, there is
no evidence to connect the playhouse with dramatic performances.
Malone, who presumably bases his statements on the now lost records of
Herbert, says that shortly after the accession of King Charles I it
"seems to have been used only by prize-fighters."[146]
[Footnote 145: Murray, _English Dramatic Companies_, I, 237, note 1.]
[Footnote 146: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 54, note 2.]
The last mention of the Curtain is found in the _Middlesex County
Records_ under the date February 21, 1627.[147] It is merely a passing
reference to "the common shoare near the Curtain playhouse," yet it is
significant as indicating that the building was then still standing.
What ultimately became of it we do not know. For a time, however, its
memory survived in Curtain Court (see page 79), and to-day its fame is
perpetuated in Curtain Road.
[Footnote 147: See Jeaffreson, _Middlesex County Records_, III, 164,
from which the notice was quoted by Ordish, _Early London Theatres_,
p. 106.]
CHAPTER V
THE FIRST BLACKFRIARS
The choir boys of the Chapel Royal, of Windsor, and of Paul's were all
engaged in presenting dramatic entertainments before Queen Elizabeth.
Each organization expected to be called upon one or more times a
year--at Christmas, New Year's, and other like occasions--to furnish
recreation to Her Majesty; and in return for its efforts each received
a liberal "reward" in money. Richard Farrant, Master of the Windsor
Chapel, was especially active in devising plays for the Queen's
entertainment. But having a large family, he was poor in spite of his
regular salary and the occasional "rewards" he received for the
performances of his Boys at Court; and doubtless he often cast about
in his mind for some way in which to increase his meagre income.
In the spring of 1576 James Burbage, having conceived the idea of a
building devoted solely to plays, had leased a plot of ground for the
purpose, and had begun the erection of the Theatre. By the autumn, no
doubt, the building was nearing completion, if, indeed, it was not
actually open to the public; and the experiment, we may suppose, was
exciting much interest in the dramatic circles of London. It seems to
have set Farrant to thinking. The professional actors, he observed,
had one important advantage over the child actors: not only could they
present their plays before the Queen and receive the usual court
reward, but in addition they could present their plays before the
public and thus reap a second and richer harvest. Since the child
actors had, as a rule, more excellent plays than the professional
troupes, and were better equipped with properties and costumes, and
since they expended just as much energy in devising plays and in
memorizing and rehearsing their parts, Farrant saw no reason why they,
too, should not be allowed to perform before the public. This, he
thought, might be done under the guise of rehearsals for the Court.
Possibly the Queen might even wink at regular performances before the
general public when she understood that this would train the Boys to
be more skilful actors, would provide Her Majesty with more numerous
and possibly more excellent plays, and would enable the Master and his
assistants to live in greater comfort without affecting the royal
purse.
[Illustration: BLACKFRIARS MONASTERY
A plan of the various buildings as they appeared before the
dissolution, based on the Loseley Manuscripts and other documents,
surveys, and maps. The Buttery became Farrant's, the Frater Burbage's
playhouse. (Drawn by the author.)]
For Farrant to build a playhouse specifically for the use of the
Children was out of the question. In the first place, it would be too
conspicuously a capitalization of the royal choristers for private
gain; and in the second place, it would be far too hazardous a
business venture for so poor a man as he to undertake. The more
sensible thing for him to do was to rent somewhere a large hall which
could at small expense be converted into a place suitable for training
the Children in their plays, and for the entertainment of
select--possibly at first invited--audiences. The performances, of
course, were not to be heralded by a trumpet-and-drum procession
through the street, by the flying of a flag, and by such-like vulgar
advertising as of a public show; instead, they were to be quiet,
presumably "private," and were to attract only noblemen and those
citizens of the better class who were interested in the drama.[148]
[Footnote 148: From this notion of privacy, I take it, arose the term
"private" theatre as distinguished from "common" or "public" theatre.
The interpretation of the term suggested by Mr. W.J. Lawrence, and
approved by Mr. William Archer, namely, that it was a legal device to
escape the city ordinance of 1574, cannot be accepted. The city had no
jurisdiction over the precinct of Blackfriars, nor did Farrant live in
the building.]
[Illustration: THE SITES OF THE TWO BLACKFRIARS PLAYHOUSES
The smaller rectangle at the north represents the Buttery, later
Farrant's playhouse, the larger rectangle represents the Frater, later
Burbage's playhouse. (From Ogilby and Morgan's _Map of London_, 1677,
the sites marked by the author.)]
Such was Farrant's scheme. In searching for a hall suitable for his
purpose, his mind at once turned to the precinct of Blackfriars, where
in former years the Office of the Revels had been kept, and where the
Children had often rehearsed their plays. The precinct had once, as
the name indicates, been in the possession of the Dominican or "Black"
Friars. The Priory buildings had consisted chiefly of a great church
two hundred and twenty feet long and sixty-six feet broad, with a
cloister on the south side of the church forming a square of one
hundred and ten feet, and a smaller cloister to the south of this. At
the dissolution of the religious orders, the property had passed into
the possession of the Crown; hence, though within the city walls, it
was not under the jurisdiction of the city authorities. Farrant
probably did not anticipate any interference on the part of the Common
Council with the royal choristers "practicing" their plays in order
"to yield Her Majesty recreation and delight," yet the absolute
certainty of being free from the adverse legislation of the London
authorities was not to be ignored. Moreover, the precinct was now the
home of many noblemen and wealthy gentlemen, and Farrant probably
thought that, as one of the most fashionable residential districts in
London, it was suitable for "private" performances to be given by
members of Her Majesty's household.
In furthering his project he sought the counsel and aid of his "very
friend" Sir Henry Neville, Lieutenant of Windsor, who, it is to be
presumed, was interested in the Windsor Boys. It happened that Neville
knew of exactly such rooms as were desired, rooms in the old monastery
of Blackfriars which he himself had once leased as a residence, and
which, he heard, were "to be let either presently, or very shortly."
These rooms were in the southwestern corner of the monastery, on the
upper floor of two adjoining buildings formerly used by the monks as a
buttery and a frater. A history of the rooms up to the time of their
use as a theatre may be briefly sketched.
In 1548 the buttery and frater, with certain other buildings, were let
by King Edward to Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the Revels; and in
1550 they were granted to him outright. In 1554 Cawarden sold the
northern section of the buttery, fifty-two feet in length, to Lord
Cobham, whose mansion it adjoined. The rest of the buttery, forty-six
feet in length, and the frater, he converted into lodgings. Since the
frater was of exceptional breadth--fifty-two feet on the outside,
forty-six feet on the inside--he ran a partition through its length,
dividing it into two parts. The section of the frater on the west of
this partition he let to Sir Richard Frith; the section on the east,
with the remainder of the buttery not sold to Lord Cobham, he let to
Sir John Cheeke. It is with the Cheeke Lodgings that we are especially
concerned.
About September, 1554, Cheeke went to travel abroad, and surrendered
his rooms in the Blackfriars. Sir Thomas Cawarden thereupon made use
of them "for the Office of the Queen's Majesty's Revells"; thus for a
time the Cheeke Lodgings were intimately connected with dramatic
activities. But at the death of Cawarden, in 1559, the Queen
transferred the Office of the Revels to St. John's, and the
Blackfriars property belonging to Cawarden passed into the possession
of Sir William More.
[Illustration: A PLAN OF FARRANT'S PLAYHOUSE
Frith's Lodging and the four southern rooms of Farrant's Lodging were
on the upper floor of the Frater; the two northern rooms of Farrant's
Lodging were on the upper floor of the Buttery. The playhouse was
erected in the two rooms last mentioned.]
In 1560 the new proprietor let the Cheeke Lodgings to Sir Henry
Neville, with the addition of "a void piece of ground" eighteen feet
wide extending west to Water Lane.[149] During his tenancy Neville
erected certain partitions, built a kitchen in the "void piece of
ground," and a large stairway leading to the rooms overhead. In 1568
he surrendered his lease, and More let the rooms first to some "sylk
dyers," and then in 1571 to Lord Cobham. In 1576 Cobham gave up the
rooms, and More was seeking a tenant. It was at this auspicious moment
that Farrant planned a private theatre, and enlisted the aid of Sir
Henry Neville.
[Footnote 149: This was enclosed with brick walls, and the greater
part used as a wood-yard. This yard was later purchased by James
Burbage when he secured the frater for his playhouse. The kitchen,
shed, and stairs, built on the eastern part, were sold to Cobham.]
On August 27 Farrant and Neville separately wrote letters to Sir
William More about the matter. Farrant respectfully solicited the
lease, and made the significant request that he might "pull down one
partition, and so make two rooms--one." Neville, in a friendly letter
beginning with "hearty commendations unto you and to Mrs. More," and
ending with light gossip, urged Sir William to let the rooms to
Farrant, and recommended Farrant as a desirable tenant ("I dare answer
for him"). Neither letter mentioned the purpose for which the rooms,
especially the large room referred to by Farrant, were to be used; but
More doubtless understood that the Windsor Children were to practice
their plays there, with occasional private rehearsals. Largely as a
result of Neville's recommendation, More decided to let the rooms to
Farrant. The progress of the negotiations is marked by a letter from
Farrant to More, dated September 17, 1576, requesting that there be
granted him also a certain "little dark room," which he found would be
useful.
The lease as finally signed describes the property thus:
Sir William More hath demised, granted, and to ferm letten,
and by these presents doth demise, grant, and to ferm let
unto the said Richard Farrant all those his six upper
chambers, lofts, lodgings, or rooms, lying together within
the precinct of the late dissolved house or priory of the
Blackfriars, otherwise called the friars preachers, in
London; which said six upper chambers, lofts, lodgings, or
rooms, were lately, amongst others, in the tenure and
occupation of the right honourable Sir William Brooke,
Knight, Lord Cobham; and do contain in length from the north
end thereof to the south end of the same one hundred fifty
and six foot and a half of assize; whereof two of the said
six upper chambers, lofts, lodgings, or rooms in the north
end of the premises, together with the breadth of the little
room under granted, do contain in length forty[150] and six
foot and a half, and from the east to the west part thereof
in breadth twenty and five foot of assize;[151] and the
four other chambers, or rooms, residue of the said six upper
chambers, do contain in length one hundred and ten foot, and
in breadth from the east to the west part thereof twenty-two
foot of assize.... And also ... the great stairs lately
erected and made by the said Sir Henry Neville upon part of
the said void ground and way.
[Footnote 150: By an error in the manuscript this reads "fifty"; but
the rooms are often described and always as "forty-six" feet in
length; moreover, the error is made obvious by the rest of the lease.]
[Footnote 151: The breadth is elsewhere given as twenty-six, and
twenty-seven feet.]
It was agreed that the lease should run for twenty-one years, and that
the rental should be L14 per annum. But Sir William More, being a most
careful and exacting landlord, with the interest of his adjacent
lodgings to care for, inserted in the lease the following important
proviso, which was destined to make trouble, and ultimately to wreck
the theatre:
Provided also that the said Richard Farrant, his executors
or assigns, or any of them, shall not in any wise demise,
let, grant, assign, set over, or by any ways or means put
away his or their interest or term of years, or any part of
the same years, of or in the said premises before letten, or
any part, parcel, or member thereof to any person, or
persons, at any time hereafter during this present lease and
term of twenty-one years, without the special license,
consent, and agreement of the said Sir William More, his
heirs and assigns, first had, and obtained in writing under
his and their hands and seals.
The penalty affixed to a violation of this provision was the immediate
forfeiture of the lease.
Apparently Farrant entered into possession of the rooms on September
29[152] (although the formal lease was not signed until December 20),
and we may suppose that he at once set about converting the two upper
rooms at the north end of the lodgings into a suitable theatre.[153]
Naturally he took for his model the halls at Court in which the
Children had been accustomed to act. First, we are told, he "pulled
down partitions to make that place apt for that purpose"; next, he
"spoiled" the windows--by which is meant, no doubt, that he stopped up
the windows, for the performances were to be by candle-light. At one
end of the hall he erected a platform to serve as a stage, and in the
auditorium he placed benches or chairs. There was, presumably, no room
for a gallery; if such had been erected, the indignant More would
certainly have mentioned it in his bill of complaints.[154]
Chandeliers over the stage, and, possibly, footlights, completed the
necessary arrangements. For these alterations Farrant, we are told,
became "greatly indebted," and he died three or four years later with
the debt still unpaid. More complained that the alterations had put
the rooms into a state of "great ruin," which meant, of course, from
the point of view of a landlord desiring to let them again for
residential purposes. Just how costly or how extensive the alterations
were we cannot now determine; but we may reasonably conclude that
Farrant made the hall not only "commodious for his purpose," but also
attractive to the aristocratic audiences he intended to gather there
to see his plays.
[Footnote 152: The date from which the lease was made to run.]
[Footnote 153: It is usually said that he converted the entire seven
rooms into his theatre, but that seems highly unlikely. The northern
section was 46 x 26 feet, the southern section 110 x 22--absurd
dimensions for an auditorium. Moreover, that Farrant originally
planned to use only the northern section is indicated by his request
to be allowed to "pull down one partition and so make two rooms--one."
The portion not used for the playhouse he rented; in 1580, we are
told, he let "two parcels thereof to two several persons."]
[Footnote 154: M. Feuillerat, I think, is wrong in supposing that
there was a gallery. He deduces no proof for his contention, and the
evidence is against him.]
To reach the hall, playgoers had to come first into Water Lane, thence
through "a way leading from the said way called Water Lane" to "a
certain void ground" before the building. Here "upon part of the said
void ground" they found a "great stairs, which said great stairs do
serve and lead into" the upper rooms--or, as we may now say,
Blackfriars Playhouse.[155]
[Footnote 155: There must have been two stairways leading to the upper
rooms; I have assumed that playgoers used Neville's stairs to reach
the theatre.]
Having thus provided a playhouse, Farrant next provided an adequate
company of boy actors. To do this, he combined the Children of Windsor
with the Children of the Chapel Royal, of which William Hunnis was
master. What arrangement he made with Hunnis we do not know, but the
Court records show that Farrant was regarded as the manager of the new
organization; he is actually referred to in the payments as "Master of
the Children of Her Majesty's Chapel," and Hunnis's official
connection with the Children is ignored.
Farrant may have been able to open his playhouse before the close of
the year; or he may have first begun performances there in the early
months of 1577. He would certainly be anxious to make use of the new
play he was preparing for presentation at Court on Twelfth Day,
January 6, 1577.
For four years, 1576-1580, the playhouse was operated without trouble.
Sir William More, however, was not pleased at the success with which
the actors were meeting. He asserted that when he made the lease he
was given to understand that the building was to be used "only for the
teaching of the Children of the Chapel"--with, no doubt, a few
rehearsals to which certain persons would be _privately_ invited. But,
now, to his grief, he discovered that Farrant had "made it a continual
house for plays." He asserted that the playhouse had become offensive
to the precinct; and doubtless some complaints had been made to him,
as landlord, by the more aristocratic inhabitants.[156] At any rate,
he became anxious to regain possession of the building.
[Footnote 156: I suspect that the theatre gave greater offense to More
himself than it did to any one else, for it adjoined his home, and the
audience made use of the private passage which led from Water Lane to
his mansion. Unquestionably he suffered worse than any one else both
from the noise and the crowds.]
In the autumn of 1580 he saw an opportunity to break the lease and
close the playhouse. Farrant made the mistake of letting "two parcels
thereof to two severall persons" without first gaining the written
consent of More, and at once More "charged him with forfeiture of his
lease." But before More could "take remedy against him" Farrant died,
November 30, 1580. More, however, "entered upon the house, and refused
to receive any rent but conditionally."
By his will, proved March 1, 1581, Farrant left the lease of the
Blackfriars to his widow, Anne Farrant. But she had no authority over
the royal choristers, nor was she qualified to manage a company of
actors, even if she had had the time to do so after caring for her
"ten little ones." What use, if any, was made of the playhouse during
the succeeding winter we do not know. The widow writes that she,
"being a sole woman, unable of herself to use the said rooms to such
purpose as her said husband late used them, nor having any need or
occasion to occupy them to such commodity as would discharge the rents
due for the said rooms in the bill alledged, nor being able to
sustain, repair, and amend the said rooms," etc.;[157] the natural
inference from which is that for a time the playhouse stood unused.
The widow, of course, was anxious to sublet the building to some one
who could make use of it as a playhouse; and on December 25, 1580, she
addressed a letter to Sir William More asking his written permission
to make such a disposal of the lease. The letter has a pathetic
interest that justifies its insertion here:
_To the right worshipful Sir William More, Knight, at his
house near Guilford, give these with speed._
_Right worshipful Sir:_
After my humble commendations, and my duty also
remembered--where it hath pleased your worship to grant unto
my husband in his life time one lease of your house within
the Blackfriars, for the term of twenty-one years, with a
proviso in the end thereof that he cannot neither let nor
set the same without your worship's consent under your hand
in writing. And now for that it hath pleased God to call my
said husband unto His mercy, having left behind him the
charge of ten small children upon my hand, and my husband
besides greatly indebted, not having the revenue of one
groat any way coming in, but by making the best I may of
such things as he hath left behind him, to relieve my little
ones. May it therefore please your worship, of your abundant
clemency and accustomed goodness, to consider a poor widow's
distressed estate, and for God's cause to comfort her with
your worship's warrant under your hand to let and set the
same to my best comodity during the term of years in the
said lease contained, not doing any waste. In all which
doing, I shall evermore most abundantly pray unto God for
the preservation of your worship's long continuance. From
Grenwich, the twenty-fifth of December,
By a poor and sorrowful widow,
ANNE FARRANT.[158]
[Footnote 157: Wallace, _The Evolution of the English Drama_, p. 163.]
[Footnote 158: Wallace, _The Evolution of the English Drama_, p.
153.]
Whether she secured in writing the permission she requested we do not
know. Four years later More said that she did not. Possibly, however,
she was orally given to understand that she might transfer the lease
to her husband's former partner in the enterprise, William
Hunnis.[159] Hunnis naturally was eager to make use of the building in
preparation for the Christmas plays at Court. At some date before
September 19, he secured the use of the playhouse on a temporary
agreement with the widow; but in order to avoid any difficulty with
More, he interviewed the latter, and presented a letter of
recommendation from the Earl of Leicester. This letter has been
preserved among Sir William's papers:
_Sir William More:_
Whereas my friend, Mr. Hunnis, this bearer, informeth me
that he hath of late bought of Farrant's widow her lease of
that house in Blackfriars which you made to her husband,
deceased, and means there to practice the Queen's Children
of the Chapel, being now in his charge, in like sort as his
predecessor did, for the better training them to do Her
Majesty's service; he is now a suitor to me to recommend him
to your good favour--which I do very heartily, as one that I
wish right well unto, and will give you thanks for any
continuance or friendship you shall show him for the
furtherance of this his honest request. And thus, with my
hearty commendations, I wish you right heartily well to
fare. From the Court, this nineteenth of September, 1581.
Your very friend,
R. LEICESTER.[160]
[Footnote 159: More had "refused to accept any rent but
conditionally." Probably he refused written consent to the sublease
for the same reason.]
[Footnote 160: Wallace, _The Evolution of the English Drama_, p. 154.]
The result of this interview we do not know. But on December 20
following, the widow made a formal lease of the property to William
Hunnis and John Newman, at a rental of L20 13_s._ 4_d._ a year, an
increase of L6 13_s._ 4_d._ over the rental she had to pay More. She
required of them a bond of L100 to guarantee their performance of all
the covenants of the lease. Thereupon the theatre under Hunnis and
Newman resumed its career--if, indeed, this had ever been seriously
interrupted.
In the course of time, More's anxiety to recover possession of the
hall seems to have increased. The quarterly payments were not promptly
met by the widow, and the repairs on the building were not made to his
satisfaction. Probably through fear of the increasing dissatisfaction
on the part of More, Hunnis and Newman transferred their lease, in
1583, to a young Welsh scrivener, Henry Evans, who had become
interested in dramatic affairs. This transfer of the lease without
More's written consent was a second clear breach of the original
contract, and it gave More exactly the opportunity he sought.
Accordingly, he declared the original lease to Farrant void, and made
a new lease of the house "unto his own man, Thomas Smallpiece, to try
the said Evans his right." But Evans, being a lawyer, knew how to take
care of himself. He "demurred in law," and "kept the same in his hands
with long delays."
The widow, alarmed at the prospect of losing her lease, brought suit,
in December, 1583, against Hunnis and Newman separately for the
forfeiture of their several bonds of L100, contending that they had
not paid promptly according to their agreement, and had not kept the
building in proper repair. Hunnis and Newman separately brought suit
in the Court of Requests for relief against the widow's suits.
Meanwhile More was demanding judgment against Evans. Hunnis, it seems,
carried his troubles to the Court and there sought help. Queen
Elizabeth could take no direct action, because Sir William More was a
good friend of hers, who had entertained her in his home. But she
might enlist the aid of one of her noblemen who were interested in the
drama. However this was, the young Earl of Oxford, himself a
playwright and the patron of a troupe of boy-actors, came to the
rescue of the theatre. He bought the lease of the building from Evans,
and undertook to reorganize its affairs. To Hunnis's twelve Children
of the Chapel he added the Children of St. Paul's Cathedral, making
thus a company of adequate size. He retained Hunnis, no doubt, as one
of the trainers of the Boys, and he kept Evans as manager of the
troupe. Moreover, shortly after the purchase, probably in June, 1583,
he made a free gift of the lease to his private secretary, John Lyly,
a young man who had recently won fame with the first English novel,
_Euphues_. The object of this, like the preceding transfers of title,
it seems, was to put as many legal blocks in the path of Sir William
More as possible. More realized this, and complained specifically that
"the title was posted from one to another"; yet he had firmly made up
his mind to recover the property, and in spite of Oxford's
interference, he instructed his "learned council" to "demand
judgment."
Meanwhile the dramatic organization at Blackfriars continued under the
direction of Hunnis, Evans, and Lyly, with the Earl of Oxford as
patron. Not only was Lyly the proprietor of the theatre, but he
attempted to supply it with the necessary plays. He had already shown
his power to tell in effective prose a pleasing love romance. That
power he now turned to the production of his first play, written in
haste for the Christmas festivities. The play, _Alexander and
Campaspe_, was presented before Her Majesty on January 1, 1584, and at
Blackfriars, with great applause. Lyly's second play, _Sapho and
Phao_, was produced at Court on March 3, following, and also at
Blackfriars before the general public.
But at the Easter term, 1584, Sir William More got judgment in his
favor. The widow begged Sir Francis Walsingham to intercede in her
behalf, declaring that the loss of the lease "might be her utter
undoing."[161] Walsingham sent the letter to More, and apparently
urged a consideration of her case. More, however, refused to yield. He
banished Lyly, Hunnis, Evans, and the Children from the "great upper
hall," and reconverted the building into tenements.
[Footnote 161: The letter is printed in full by Mr. Wallace in _The
Evolution of the English Drama_, p. 158. Mr. Wallace, however,
misdates it. It was not written until after More had "recovered it
[the lease] against Evans."]
CHAPTER VI
ST. PAUL'S
As shown in the preceding chapter, not only were the Children of the
Chapel Royal and of Windsor called upon to entertain the Queen with
dramatic performances, but the Children of St. Paul's were also
expected to amuse their sovereign on occasion. And following the
example of the Children of the Chapel and of Windsor in giving
performances before the public in Blackfriars, the Paul's Boys soon
began to give such performances in a building near the Cathedral.[162]
The building so employed was doubtless one of the structures owned by
the Church. Burbage and Heminges refer to it as "the said house near
St. Paul's Church."[163] Richard Flecknoe, in _A Discourse of the
English Stage_ (1664), places it "behind the Convocation-house in
Paul's";[164] and Howes, in his continuation of Stow's _Annals_
(1631), says that it was the "singing-school" of the Cathedral.[165]
That the auditorium was small we may well believe. So was the stage.
Certain speakers in the Induction to _What You Will_, acted at Paul's
in 1600, say: "Let's place ourselves within the curtains, for, good
faith, the stage is so very little, we shall wrong the general eye
else very much." Both Fleay and Lawrence[166] contend that the
building was "round, like the Globe," and as evidence they cite the
Prologue to Marston's _Antonio's Revenge_, acted at Paul's in 1600, in
which the phrases "within this round" and "within this ring" are
applied to the theatre. The phrases, however, may have reference
merely to the circular disposition of the benches about the stage.
That high prices of admission to the little theatre were charged we
learn from a marginal note in _Pappe with an Hatchet_ (1589), which
states that if a tragedy "be showed at Paul's, it will cost you four
pence; at the Theatre two pence."[167] The Children, indeed, catered
to a very select public. Persons who went thither were gentle by birth
and by behavior as well; and playwrights, we are told, could always
feel sure there of the "calm attention of a choice audience."[168]
Lyly, in the Prologue to _Midas_, acted at Paul's in 1589, says: "Only
this doth encourage us, that presenting our studies before
_Gentlemen_, though they receive an inward dislike, we shall not be
hissed with an open disgrace." Things were quite otherwise in the
public theatres of Shoreditch and the Bankside.
[Footnote 162: Murray, _English Dramatic Companies_, I, 325,
erroneously says: "Their public place was, probably, from the first,
the courtyard of St. Paul's Cathedral."]
[Footnote 163: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p.
95.]
[Footnote 164: That is, in or near Pater Noster Row.]
[Footnote 165: _Annales, or A Generall Chronicle of England_, 1631,
signature liii 1, verso.]
[Footnote 166: F.G. Fleay, _A Biographical Chronicle of the English
Drama_, II, 76; W.J. Lawrence, _The Elizabethan Playhouse_, p. 17.]
[Footnote 167: R.W. Bond, _The Complete Works of John Lyly_, III, 408.
Higher prices of admission were charged to all the private
playhouses.]
[Footnote 168: John Marston, _Antonio's Revenge_, acted at Paul's in
1600.]
Under the direction of their master, Sebastian Westcott, the Boys
acted before the public at least as early as 1578,[169] for in
December of that year the Privy Council ordered the Lord Mayor to
permit them to "exercise plays" within the city;[170] and Stephen
Gosson, in his _Plays Confuted_, written soon afterwards, mentions
_Cupid and Psyche_ as having been recently "plaid at Paules."
[Footnote 169: There is a record of a play by the Paul's Boys in 1527
before ambassadors from France, dealing with the heretic Luther; but
exactly when they began to give public performances for money we do
not know.]
[Footnote 170: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 432.]
Westcott died in 1582, and was succeeded by Thomas Gyles. Shortly
after this we find the Children of Paul's acting publicly with the
Children of the Chapel Royal at the little theatre in Blackfriars. For
them John Lyly wrote his two earliest plays, _Campaspe_ and _Sapho and
Phao_, as the title-pages clearly state. But their stay at Blackfriars
was short. When in 1584 Sir William More closed up the theatre there,
they fell back upon their singing-school as the place for their public
performances.
At the same time the Queen became greatly interested in promoting
their dramatic activities. To their master, Thomas Gyles, she issued,
in April, 1585, a special commission "to take up apt and meet
children" wherever he could find them. It was customary for the Queen
to issue such a commission to the masters of her two private chapels,
but never before, or afterwards, had this power to impress children
been conferred upon a person not directly connected with the royal
choristers. Its issuance to Gyles in 1585 clearly indicates the
Queen's interest in the Paul's Boys as actors, and her expectation of
being frequently entertained by them. And to promote her plans still
further, she appointed the successful playwright John Lyly as their
vice-master, with the understanding, no doubt, that he was to keep
them--and her--supplied with plays. This he did, for all his comedies,
except the two just mentioned, were written for the Cathedral
Children, and were acted by them at Court, and in their little theatre
"behind the Convocation House."
Unfortunately under Lyly's leadership the Boys became involved in the
bitter Martin Marprelate controversy, for which they were suppressed
near the end of 1590. The printer of Lyly's _Endimion_, in 1591, says
to the reader: "Since the plays in Paul's were dissolved, there are
certain comedies come to my hands by chance, which were presented
before Her Majesty at several times by the Children of Paul's."
Exactly how long the Children were restrained it is hard to determine.
In 1596 Thomas Nash, in _Have With You to Saffron Walden_, expressed
a desire to see "the plays at Paul's up again." Mr. Wallace thinks
they may have been allowed "up again" in 1598;[171] Fleay, in 1599 or
1600;[172] the evidence, however, points, I think, to the spring or
early summer of 1600. The Children began, naturally, with old plays,
"musty fopperies of antiquity"; the first, or one of the first, new
plays they presented was Marston's _Jack Drum's Entertainment_, the
date of which can be determined within narrow limits. References to
Kempe's Morris, which was danced in February, 1600, as being still a
common topic of conversation, and the entry of the play in the
Stationers' Registers on September 8, 1600, point to the spring or
early summer of 1600 as the date of composition. This makes very
significant the following passage in the play referring to the Paul's
Boys as just beginning to act again after their long inhibition:
_Sir Ed._ I saw the Children of Paul's last night,
And troth they pleas'd me pretty, pretty well.
The Apes in time will do it handsomely.
_Plan._ S'faith, I like the audience that frequenteth there
With much applause. A man shall not be choak't
With the stench of garlic, nor be pasted
To the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer.
_Bra. Ju._ 'Tis a good, gentle audience; and I hope the Boys
Will come one day into the Court of Requests.
[Footnote 171: _The Children of the Chapel_, p. 153.]
[Footnote 172: _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, p. 152.]
Shortly after this the Boys were indeed called "into the Court of
Requests," for on New Year's Day, 1601, they were summoned to present
a play before Her Majesty.
Their master now was Edward Pierce, who had succeeded Thomas Gyles. In
1605 the experienced Edward Kirkham, driven from the management of the
Blackfriars Theatre, became an assistant to Pierce in the management
of Paul's. In this capacity we find him in 1606 receiving the payment
for the two performances of the Boys at Court that year.[173]
[Footnote 173: Cunningham, _Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels_,
p. XXXVIII.]
Among the playwrights engaged by Pierce to write for Paul's were
Marston, Middleton, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, and Beaumont; and, as a
result, some of the most interesting dramas of the period were first
acted on the small stage of the singing-school. Details in the history
of the Children, however, are few. We find an occasional notice of
their appearance at Court, but our record of them is mainly secured
from the title-pages of their plays.
The last notice of a performance by them is as follows: "On the 30th
of July, 1606, the youths of Paul's, commonly called the Children of
Paul's, played before the two Kings [of England and of Denmark] a play
called _Abuses_, containing both a comedy and a tragedy, at which the
Kings seemed to take great delight and be much pleased."[174]
[Footnote 174: Nichols, _The Progresses of James_, IV, 1073.]
The reason why the Children ceased to act is made clear in the lawsuit
of Keysar _v._ Burbage _et al._, recently discovered and printed by
Mr. Wallace.[175] From this we learn that when Rosseter became manager
of the Children of the Queen's Revels at the private playhouse of
Whitefriars in 1609, he undertook to increase his profits by securing
a monopoly both of child-acting and of private theatres. Blackfriars
had been deserted, and the only other private theatre then in
existence was Paul's. So Rosseter agreed to pay Pierce a dead rent of
L20 a year to keep the Paul's playhouse closed:
One Mr. Rosseter, a partner of the said complainant, dealt
for and compounded with the said Mr. Pierce to the only
benefit of him, the said Mr. Rosseter, the now complainant,
the rest of their partners and Company [at the Whitefriars]
... that thereby they might ... advance their gains and
profit to be had and made in their said house in the
Whitefriars, that there might be a cessation of playing and
plays to be acted in the said house near St. Paul's Church
aforesaid, for which the said Rosseter compounded with the
said Pierce to give him the said Pierce twenty pounds per
annum.[176]
[Footnote 175: _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p. 80.]
[Footnote 176: _Ibid._, p. 95.]
In this attempt to secure a monopoly in private playhouses Rosseter
was foiled by the coming of Shakespeare's troupe to the Blackfriars;
but the King's Men readily agreed to join in the payment of the dead
rent to Pierce, for it was to their advantage also to eliminate
competition.
The agreement which Rosseter secured from Pierce was binding "for one
whole year"; whether it was renewed we do not know, but the Children
never again acted in "their house near St. Paul's Church."
CHAPTER VII
THE BANKSIDE AND THE BEAR GARDEN
From time out of mind the suburb of London known as "the
Bankside"--the term was loosely applied to all the region south of the
river and west of the bridge--had been identified with sports and
pastimes. On Sundays, holidays, and other festive occasions, the
citizens, their wives, and their apprentices were accustomed to seek
outdoor entertainment across the river, going thither in boats (of
which there was an incredible number, converting "the silver sliding
Thames" almost into a Venetian Grand Canal), or strolling on foot over
old London Bridge. On the Bankside the visitors could find maypoles
for dancing, butts for the practice of archery, and broad fields for
athletic games; or, if so disposed, they could visit bull-baitings,
bear-baitings, fairs, stage-plays, shows, motions, and other
amusements of a similar sort.
Not all the attractions of the Bankside, however, were so innocent.
For here, in a long row bordering the river's edge, were situated the
famous stews of the city, licensed by authority of the Bishop of
Winchester; and along with the stews, of course, such places as thrive
in a district devoted to vice--houses for gambling, for
coney-catching, and for evil practices of various sorts. The less said
of this feature of the Bankside the better.
More needs to be said of the bull- and bear-baiting, which probably
constituted the chief amusement of the crowds from the city, and which
was later closely associated with the drama and with playhouses. This
sport, now surviving in the bull-fights of Spain and of certain
Spanish-American countries, was in former times one of the most
popular species of entertainment cultivated by the English. Even so
early as 1174, William Fitz-Stephen, in his _Descriptio Nobilissimae
Ciuitatis Londoniae_, under the heading _De Ludis_, records that the
London citizens diverted themselves on holiday occasions with the
baiting of beasts, when "strong horn-goring bulls, or immense bears,
contend fiercely with dogs that are pitted against them."[177] In some
towns the law required that bulls intended for the butcher-shop should
first be baited for the amusement of the public before being led to
the slaughter-house. Erasmus speaks of the "many herds of bears" which
he saw in England "maintained for the purpose of baiting." The baiting
was accomplished by tying the bulls or bears to stakes, or when
possible releasing them in an amphitheatre, and pitting against them
bull-dogs, bred through centuries for strength and ferocity.
Occasionally other animals, as ponies and apes, were brought into the
fight, and the sport was varied in miscellaneous ways. Some of the
animals, by unusual courage or success, endeared themselves to the
heart of the sporting public. Harry Hunks, George Stone, and Sacarson
were famous bears in Shakespeare's time; and the names of many of the
"game bulls" and "mastiff dogs" became household words throughout
London.
[Footnote 177: "Pingues tauri cornupetae, seu vrsi immanes, cum
obiectis depugnant canibus."]
[Illustration: THE BANKSIDE
Showing the Bear- and Bull-baiting Rings. (From the _Map of London_ by
Braun and Hogenbergius, representing the city in 1554-1558.)]
[Illustration: THE BANKSIDE
This was the second district of London used for public playhouses.
Notice the amphitheatres for animal-baiting. (From William Smith's MS.
of the Description of England, _c._ 1580.)]
The home of this popular sport was the Bankside. The earliest extant
map of Southwark,[178] drawn about 1542, shows in the very centre of
High Street, just opposite London Bridge, a circular amphitheatre
marked "The Bull Ring"; and doubtless there were other places along
the river devoted to the same purpose. The baiting of bears was more
closely identified with the Manor of Paris Garden,[179] that section
of the Bank lying to the west of the Clink, over towards the marshes
of Lambeth. The association of bear-baiting with this particular
section was probably due to the fact that in early days the butchers
of London used a part of the Manor of Paris Garden for the disposal
of their offal,[180] and the entrails and other refuse from the
slaughtered beasts furnished cheap and abundant food for the bears and
dogs. The Earl of Manchester wrote to the Lord Mayor and the Common
Council, in 1664, that he had been informed by the master of His
Majesty's Game of Bears and Bulls, and others, that "the Butcher's
Company had formerly caused all their offal in Eastcheap and Newgate
Market to be conveyed by the beadle of the Company unto two barrow
houses, conveniently placed on the river side, for the provision and
feeding of the King's Game of Bears."
[Footnote 178: The map is reproduced in facsimile by Rendle as a
frontispiece to _Old Southwark and its People_.]
[Footnote 179: Or Parish Garden, possibly the more correct form. For
the early history of the Manor see William Bray, _The History and
Antiquities of the County of Surrey_, III, 530; Wallace, in _Englische
Studien_ (1911), XLIII, 341, note 3; Ordish, _Early London Theatres_,
p. 125.]
[Footnote 180: Blount, in his _Glossographia_ (1681), p. 473, says of
Paris Garden: "So called from Robert de Paris, who had a house and
garden there in Richard II.'s time; who by proclamation, ordained that
the butchers of London should buy that garden for receipt of their
garbage and entrails of beasts, to the end the city might not be
annoyed thereby."]
[Illustration: THE BEAR- AND BULL-BAITING RINGS
These "rings" later gave place to the Bear Garden. (From Agas's _Map
of London_, representing the city as it was about 1560.)]
At first, apparently, the baiting of bears was held in open
places,[181] with the bear tied to a stake and the spectators crowding
around, or at best standing on temporary scaffolds. But later,
permanent amphitheatres were provided. In Braun and Hogenberg's _Map
of London_, drawn between 1554 and 1558, and printed in 1572, we find
two well-appointed amphitheatres, with stables and kennels attached,
labeled respectively "The Bear Baiting" and "The Bull Baiting." When
these amphitheatres were erected we do not know, but probably they do
not antedate by much the middle of the century.[182]
[Footnote 181: See Gilpin's _Life of Cranmer_ for a description of a
bear-baiting before the King held on or near the river's edge. See
also the proclamation of Henry VIII in 1546 against the stews, which
implies the non-existence of regular amphitheatres.]
[Footnote 182: Sir Sidney Lee (_Shakespeare's England_, II, 428) says
that one of the amphitheatres was erected in 1526. I do not know his
authority; he was apparently misled by one of Rendle's statements.
Neither of the amphitheatres is shown in Wyngaerde's careful _Map of
London_ made about 1530-1540; possibly they are referred to in the
_Diary_ of Henry Machyn under the date of May 26, 1554. The old "Bull
Ring" in High Street had then disappeared, and the baiting of bulls
was henceforth more or less closely associated, as was natural, with
the baiting of bears.]
It is to be noted that at this time neither "The Bull Baiting" nor
"The Bear Baiting" is in the Manor of Paris Garden, but close by in
the Liberty of the Clink. Yet the name "Paris Garden" continued to be
used of the animal-baiting place for a century and more. Possibly the
identification of bear-baiting with Paris Garden was of such long
standing that Londoners could not readily adjust themselves to the
change; they at first confused the terms "Bear Garden" and "Paris
Garden," and later extended the term "Paris Garden" to include that
section of the Clink devoted to the baiting of animals.
The two amphitheatres, it seems, were used until 1583, when a serious
catastrophe put an end to one if not both of them. Stow, in his
_Annals_, gives the following account of the accident:
The same thirteenth day of January, being Sunday, about four
of the clock in the afternoon, the old and underpropped
scaffolds round about the Bear Garden, commonly called Paris
Garden, on the south side of the river of Thamis over
against the city of London, overcharged with people, fell
suddenly down, whereby to the number of eight persons, men
and women, were slain, and many others sore hurt and bruised
to the shortening of their lives.[183]
[Footnote 183: Stow, _Annals_ (ed. 1631), p. 696.]
Stubbes, the Puritan, writes in his more heightened style:
Upon the 13 day of January last, being the Saboth day,
_Anno_ 1583, the people, men, women, and children, both
young and old, an infinite number, flocking to those
infamous places where these wicked exercises are usually
practised (for they have their courts, gardens, and yards
for the same purpose), when they were all come together and
mounted aloft upon their scaffolds and galleries, and in the
midst of all their jolity and pastime, all the whole
building (not one stick standing) fell down with a most
wonderful and fearful confusion. So that either two or three
hundred men, women, and children (by estimation), whereof
seven were killed dead, some were wounded, some lamed, and
otherwise bruised and crushed almost to death. Some had
their brains dashed out, some their heads all to-squashed,
some their legs broken, some their arms, some their backs,
some their shoulders, some one hurt, some another.[184]
[Footnote 184: Philip Stubbes, _The Anatomie of Abuses_ (ed.
Furnivall), p. 179.]
The building, which the Reverend John Field described as "old and
rotten,"[185] was a complete ruin; "not a stick was left so high as
the bear was fastened to." The Puritan preachers loudly denounced the
unholy spectacles, pointing to the catastrophe as a clear warning from
the Almighty; and the city authorities earnestly besought the Privy
Council to put an end to such performances. Yet the owners of the
building set to work at once, and soon had erected a new house,
stronger and larger and more pretentious than before. The Lord Mayor,
in some indignation, wrote to the Privy Council on July 3, 1583, that
"the scaffolds are new builded, and the multitudes on the Saboth day
called together in most excessive number."[186]
[Footnote 185: _A Godly Exhortation by Occasion of the Late Judgement
of God, Shewed at Paris-Garden_ (London, 1583). Another account of the
disaster may be found in Vaughan's _Golden Grove_ (1600).]
[Footnote 186: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 65.]
The New Bear Garden, octagonal in form, was probably modeled after the
playhouses in Shoreditch, and made in all respects superior to the old
amphitheatre which it supplanted.[187] We find that it was reckoned
among the sights of the city, and was exhibited to distinguished
foreign visitors. For example, when Sir Walter Raleigh undertook to
entertain the French Ambassador, he carried him to view the monuments
in Westminster Abbey and to see the new Bear Garden.
[Footnote 187: What became of the other amphitheatre labeled "The Bull
Baiting" I do not know. Stow, in his _Survey_, 1598, says: "Now to
return to the west bank, there be two bear gardens, the old and new
places, wherein be kept bears, bulls, and other beasts to be baited."]
[Illustration: THE BEAR GARDEN
From Visscher's _Map of London_, published in 1616, but representing
the city as it was several years earlier.]
A picture of the building is to be seen in the Hondius _View of
London_, 1610 (see page 149), and in the small inset views from the
title-pages of Holland's _Her[Greek: o]ologia_, 1620, and Baker's
_Chronicle_, 1643 (see page 147), all three of which probably go back
to a view of London made between 1587 and 1597, and now lost. Another
representation of the structure is to be seen in the Delaram portrait
of King James, along with the Rose and the Globe (see opposite page
246). The best representation of the building, however, is in
Visscher's _View of London_ (see page 127), printed in 1616, but drawn
several years earlier.[188]
[Footnote 188: For a fuller discussion of these various maps and views
see pages 146, 248, and 328. Norden's map of 1594 (see page 147)
merely indicates the site of the building.]
Although we are not directly concerned with the history of the Bear
Garden,[189] a few descriptions of "the royal game of bears, bulls,
and dogs" drawn from contemporary sources will be of interest and of
specific value for the discussion of the Hope Playhouse--itself both a
bear garden and a theatre.
[Footnote 189: For such a history the reader is referred to Ordish,
_Early London Theatres_; Greg, _Henslowe's Diary_, II, and _Henslowe
Papers_; Young, _The History of Dulwich College_; Rendle, _The
Bankside_, and _The Playhouses at Bankside_.]
Robert Laneham, in his _Description of the Entertainment at
Kenilworth_ (1575), writes thus of a baiting of bears before the
Queen:
Well, syr, the Bearz wear brought foorth intoo the Coourt,
the dogs set too them.... It was a Sport very pleazaunt of
theez beastz; to see the bear with his pink nyez leering
after hiz enemiez approoch, the nimbleness & wayt of ye dog
to take his auauntage, and the fors & experiens of the bear
agayn to auoyd the assauts: if he war bitten in one place,
how he woold pynch in an oother to get free: that if he wear
taken onez, then what shyft, with byting, with clawing, with
rooring, tossing, & tumbling he woold woork to wynd hym self
from them: and when he waz lose, to shake his earz tywse or
thryse, wyth the blud and the slauer aboout his fiznomy, waz
a matter of a goodly releef.
John Houghton, in his _Collection for Improvement of Husbandry and
Trade_,[190] gives a vivid account of the baiting of the bull. He
says:
The bull takes great care to watch his enemy, which is a
mastiff dog (commonly used to the sport) with a short nose
that his teeth may take the better hold; this dog, if right,
will creep upon his belly that he may, if possible, get the
bull by the nose; which the bull as carefully strives to
defend by laying it close to the ground, where his horns are
also ready to do what in them lies to toss the dog; and this
is the true sport. But if more dogs than one come at once,
or they are cowardly and come under his legs, he will, if he
can, stamp their guts out. I believe I have seen a dog
tossed by a bull thirty, if not forty foot high; and when
they are tossed, either higher or lower, the men above
strive to catch them on their shoulders, lest the fall might
mischief the dogs. They commonly lay sand about that if they
fall upon the ground it may be the easier. Notwithstanding
this care a great many dogs are killed, more have their
limbs broke, and some hold so fast that, by the bull's
swinging them, their teeth are often broken out.... The true
courage and art is to hold the bull by the nose 'till he
roars, which a courageous bull scorns to do.... This is a
sport the English much delight in; and not only the baser
sort, but the greatest lords and ladies.
[Footnote 190: No. 108, August, 1694. Quoted by J.P. Malcolm,
_Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London from the Roman
Invasion to the Year 1700_ (London, 1811), p. 433.]
An attendant upon the Duke of Nexara, who visited England in 1544,
wrote the following account of a bear-baiting witnessed in London:
In another part of the city we saw seven bears, some of them
of great size. They were led out every day to an enclosure,
where being tied with a long rope, large and intrepid dogs
are thrown to them, in order that they may bite and make
them furious. It is no bad sport to see them fight, and the
assaults they give each other. To each of the large bears
are matched three or four dogs, which sometimes get the
better and sometimes are worsted, for besides the fierceness
and great strength of the bears to defend themselves with
their teeth, they hug the dogs with their paws so tightly,
that, unless the masters came to assist them, they would be
strangled by such soft embraces. Into the same place they
brought a pony with an ape fastened on its back, and to see
the animal kicking amongst the dogs, with the screams of the
ape, beholding the curs hanging from the ears and neck of
the pony, is very laughable.[191]
[Footnote 191: The original manuscript of this narrative, in Spanish,
is preserved in the British Museum. I quote the translation by
Frederick Madden, in _Archaeologia_, XIII, 354-55.]
Orazio Busino, the chaplain of the Venetian Embassy in London, writes
in his _Anglipotrida_ (1618):
The dogs are detached from the bear by inserting between the
teeth ... certain iron spattles with a wooden handle; whilst
they take them off the bull (keeping at a greater distance)
with certain flat iron hooks which they apply to the thighs
or even to the neck of the dog, whose tail is simultaneously
dexterously seized by another of these rufflers. The bull
can hardly get at anybody, as he wears a collar round his
neck with only fifteen feet of rope, which is fastened to a
stake deeply planted in the middle of the theatre. Other
rufflers are at hand with long poles to put under the dog so
as to break his fall after he has been tossed by the bull;
the tips of these [poles] are covered with thick leather to
prevent them from disembowelling the dogs. The most spirited
stroke is considered to be that of the dog who seizes the
bull's lip, clinging to it and pinning the animal for some
time; the second best hit is to seize the eyebrows; the
third, but far inferior, consists in seizing the bull's
ear.[192]
[Footnote 192: _The Calendar of State Papers_, Venetian, XV, 258.]
Paul Hentzner, the German traveler who visited London in 1598, wrote
thus of the Bear Garden:
There is still another place, built in the form of a
theatre, which serves for the baiting of bulls and bears;
they are fastened behind, and then worried by great English
bull-dogs, but not without great risk to the dogs, from the
horns of the one, and the teeth of the other; and it
sometimes happens they are killed upon the spot; fresh ones
are immediately supplied in the places of those that are
wounded or tired. To this entertainment there often follows
that of whipping a blinded bear, which is performed by five
or six men standing circularly with whips, which they
exercise upon him without any mercy, as he cannot escape
from them because of his chain; he defends himself with all
his force and skill, throwing down all who come within his
reach, and are not active enough to get out of it, and
tearing the whips out of their hands and breaking them.
The following passage is taken from the diary of the Duke of
Wirtemberg (who visited London in 1592), "noted down daily in the most
concise manner possible, at his Highness's gracious command, by his
private secretary":[193]
On the 1st of September his Highness was shown in London the
English dogs, of which there were about 120, all kept in the
same enclosure, but each in separate kennel. In order to
gratify his Highness, and at his desire, two bears and a
bull were baited; at such times you can perceive the breed
and mettle of the dogs, for although they receive serious
injuries from the bears, and are caught by the horns of the
bull and tossed into the air so as frequently to fall down
again upon the horns, they do not give in, [but fasten on
the bull so firmly] that one is obliged to pull them back by
the tails and force open their jaws. Four dogs at once were
set on the bull; they however could not gain any advantage
over him, for he so artfully contrived to ward off their
attacks that they could not well get at him; on the
contrary, the bull served them very scurvily by striki
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