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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.