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 striking and
beating at them.
[Footnote 193: The secretary was named Jacob Rathgeb, and the diary
was published at Tuebingen in 1602 with a long title beginning: _A True
and Faithful Narrative of the Bathing Excursion which His Serene
Highness_, etc. A translation will be found in Rye, _England as Seen
by Foreigners_, pp. 3-53.]
The following is a letter from one William Faunte to Edward Alleyn,
then proprietor of the Bear Garden, regarding the sale of some game
bulls:
I understood by a man which came with two bears from the
garden, that you have a desire to buy one of my bulls. I
have three western bulls at this time, but I have had very
ill luck with them, for one of them hath lost his horn to
the quick, that I think he will never be able to fight
again; that is my old Star of the West: he was a very easy
bull. And my bull Bevis, he hath lost one of his eyes, but I
think if you had him he would do you more hurt than good,
for I protest I think he would either throw up your dogs
into the lofts, or else ding out their brains against the
grates.[194]
[Footnote 194: Collier, _The Alleyn Papers_, p. 31.]
Finally, among the Alleyn papers of Dulwich College is an interesting
bill, or advertisement, of an afternoon's performance at the Bear
Garden:
To-morrow being Thursday shall be seen at the Bear Garden on
the Bankside a great match played by the gamesters of Essex,
who hath challenged all comers whatsoever to play five dogs
at the single bear for five pounds, and also to weary a bull
dead at the stake; and for your better content [you] shall
have pleasant sport with the horse and ape and whipping of
the blind bear. _Vivat Rex!_
In 1613 the Bear Garden was torn down, and a new and handsomer
structure erected in its place. For the history of this building the
reader is referred to the chapter on "The Hope."