CHAPTER XI

THE SECOND BLACKFRIARS

In 1596 Burbage's lease of the plot of ground on which he had erected

the Theatre was drawing to a close, and all his efforts at a renewal

had failed. The owner of the land, Gyles Alleyn, having, in spite of

the terms of the original contract, refused to extend the lease until

1606, was craftily plotting for a substantial increase in the rental;

moreover, having become puritanical in his attitude towards the drama,

he was insisting that if the lease were renewed, the Theatre should be

used as a playhouse for five years only, and then should either be

torn down, or be converted into tenements. Burbage tentatively agreed

to pay the increased rental, but, of course, he could not possibly

agree to the second demand; and when all negotiations on this point

proved futile, he realized that he must do something at once to meet

the awkward situation.

In the twenty years that had elapsed since the erection of the Theatre

and the Curtain in Holywell, the Bankside had been developed as a

theatrical district, and the Rose and the Swan, not to mention the

Bear Garden, had made the south side of the river the popular place

for entertainments. Naturally, therefore, any one contemplating the

erection of a playhouse would immediately think of this locality.

Burbage, however, was a man of ideas. He believed that he could

improve on the Bankside as a site for his theatre. He remembered how,

at the outset of his career as a theatrical manager, he had had to

face competition with Richard Farrant who had opened a small "private"

playhouse in Blackfriars. Although that building had not been used as

a "public" playhouse, and had been closed up after a few years of sore

tribulation, it had revealed to Burbage the possibilities of the

Blackfriars precinct for theatrical purposes. In the first place, the

precinct was not under the jurisdiction of the city, so that actors

would not there be subject to the interference of the Lord Mayor and

his Aldermen. As Stevens writes in his _History of Ancient Abbeys,

Monasteries, etc._: "All the inhabitants within it were subject to

none but the King ... neither the Mayor, nor the sheriffs, nor any

other officers of the City of London had the least jurisdiction or

authority therein." Blackfriars, therefore, in this fundamental

respect, was just as desirable a location for theatres as was Holywell

to the north of the city, or the Bankside to the south. In the second

place, Blackfriars had a decided advantage over those two suburban

localities in that it was "scituated in the bosome of the

Cittie,"[277] near St. Paul's Cathedral, the centre of London life,

and hence was readily accessible to playgoers, even during the

disagreeable winter season. In the third place, the locality was

distinctly fashionable. To give some notion of the character of its

inhabitants, I record below the names of a few of those who lived in

or near the conventual buildings at various times after the

dissolution: George Brooke, Lord Cobham; William Brooke, Lord Cobham,

Lord Chamberlain of the Queen's Household; Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham,

Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports; Sir Thomas Cheney, Treasurer of the

Queen's Household, and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports; Henry Carey,

Lord Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain of the Queen's Household; George Carey,

Lord Hunsdon, who as Lord Chamberlain was the patron of Shakespeare's

troupe; Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the Revels; Sir Henry

Jerningham, Fee Chamberlain to the Queen's Highness; Sir Willam More,

Chamberlain of the Exchequer; Lord Zanche; Sir John Portynary; Sir

William Kingston; Sir Francis Bryan; Sir John Cheeke; Sir George

Harper; Sir Philip Hoby, Lady Anne Gray; Sir Robert Kyrkham; Lady

Perrin; Sir Christopher More; Sir Henry Neville; Sir Thomas Saunders;

Sir Jerome Bowes; and Lady Jane Guildford.[278] Obviously the

locality was free from the odium which the public always associated

with Shoreditch and the Bankside, the recognized homes of the London

stews.[279]

[Footnote 277: The Petition of 1619, in The Malone Society's

_Collections_, I, 93.]

[Footnote 278: It is true that poor people also, feather-dealers and

such-like, lived in certain parts of Blackfriars, but this, of course,

did not affect the reputation of the precinct as the residence of

noblemen.]

[Footnote 279: In Samuel Rowlands's _Humors Looking Glass_ (1608), a

rich country gull is represented as filling his pockets with money and

coming to London. Here a servant "of the Newgate variety" shows him

the sights of the city:

Brought him to the Bankside where bears do dwell,

And unto Shoreditch where the whores keep hell.]

Thus, a playhouse erected in the precinct of Blackfriars would escape

all the grave disadvantages of situation which attached to the

existing playhouses in the suburbs, and, on the other hand, would gain

several very important advantages.

Burbage's originality, however, did not stop with the choice of

Blackfriars as the site of his new theatre; he determined to improve

on the form of building as well. The open-air structure which he had

designed in 1576, and which had since been copied in all public

theatres, had serious disadvantages in that it offered no protection

from the weather. Burbage now resolved to provide a large "public"

playhouse, fully roofed in, with the entire audience and the actors

protected against the inclemency of the sky and the cold of winter. In

short, his dream was of a theatre centrally located, comfortably

heated, and, for its age, luxuriously appointed.

With characteristic energy and courage he at once set about the task

of realizing this dream. He found in the Blackfriars precinct a large

building which, he thought, would admirably serve his purpose. This

building was none other than the old Frater of the Monastery, a

structure one hundred and ten feet long and fifty-two feet wide, with

stone walls three feet thick, and a flat roof covered with lead. From

the Loseley documents, which M. Feuillerat has placed at the disposal

of scholars,[280] we are now able to reconstruct the old Frater

building, and to point out exactly that portion which was made into a

playhouse.[281]

[Footnote 280: _Blackfriars Records_, in The Malone Society's

_Collections_, (1913).]

[Footnote 281: For a reconstruction of the Priory buildings and

grounds, and for specific evidence of statements made in the following

paragraphs, the reader is referred to J.Q. Adams, _The Conventual

Buildings of Blackfriars, London_, in the University of North Carolina

_Studies in Philology_, XIV, 64.]

At the time of the dissolution, the top story consisted of a single

large room known as the "Upper Frater," and also as the "Parliament

Chamber" from the fact that the English Parliament met here on several

occasions; here, also, was held the trial before Cardinals Campeggio

and Wolsey for the divorce of the unhappy Queen Catherine and Henry

VIII--a scene destined to be reenacted in the same building by

Shakespeare and his fellows many years later. In 1550 the room was

granted, with various other properties in Blackfriars, to Sir Thomas

Cawarden.[282]

[Footnote 282: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, pp. 7, 12.]

[Illustration: PLAN ILLUSTRATING THE SECOND BLACKFRIARS PLAYHOUSE

The Playhouse was made by combining the Hall and the Parlor.]

The space below the Parliament Chamber was divided into three units.

At the northern end was a "Hall" extending the width of the building.

It is mentioned in the Survey[283] of 1548 as "a Hall ... under the

said Frater"; and again in the side-note: "Memorandum, my Lorde Warden

claimeth the said Hall." Just to the south of the Hall was a "Parlor,"

or dining-chamber, "where commonly the friars did use to break their

fast." It is described in the Survey as being "under the said Frater,

of the same length and breadth." The room could not have been of the

"same length and breadth" as the great Parliament Chamber, for not

only would such dimensions be absurd for an informal dining-room, but,

as we are clearly told, the "Infirmary" was also under the Parliament

Chamber, and was approximately one-third the size of the latter.[284]

Accordingly I have interpreted the phrase, "of the same length and

breadth," to mean that the Parlor was square. When the room was sold

to Burbage it was said to be fifty-two feet in length from north to

south, which is exactly the breadth of the building from east to west.

The Parlor, as well as the Hall, was claimed by the Lord Warden; and

both were granted to Sir Thomas Cawarden in 1550.

[Footnote 283: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, p. 7.]

[Footnote 284: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, pp. 105-06.]

South of the Parlor was the Infirmary, described as being "at the

western corner of the Inner Cloister" (of which the Frater building

constituted the western side), as being under the Parliament Chamber,

and as being approximately one-third the size of the Parliament

Chamber. The Infirmary seems to have been structurally distinct from

the Hall and Parlor.[285] It was three stories high, consisting of a

"room beneath the Fermary," the Infirmary itself, a "room above the

same";[286] while the Parliament Chamber, extending itself "over the

room above the Fermary," constituted a fourth story. Furthermore, not

only was the Infirmary a structural unit distinct from the Hall and

the Parlor at the north, but it never belonged to Cawarden or More,

and hence was not included in the sale to Burbage. It was granted in

1545 to Lady Mary Kingston,[287] from whom it passed to her son, Sir

Henry Jerningham, then to Anthony Kempe, who later sold it to Lord

Hunsdon;[288] and at the time the playhouse was built, the Infirmary

was still in the occupation of Hunsdon.

[Footnote 285: In all probability it was separated from the Hall and

Parlor by a passage leading through the Infirmary into the Inner

Cloister yard.]

[Footnote 286: One reason for the greater height may have been the

slope of the ground towards the river; a second reason was the unusual

height of the Parlor.]

[Footnote 287: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, p. 105.]

[Footnote 288: _Ibid._, p. 124.]

At the northern end of the Frater building, and extending westward,

was a narrow structure fifty feet in length, sixteen feet in breadth,

and three stories in height, regarded as a "part of the frater

parcel." The middle story, which was on the same level with the

Parliament Chamber, was known as the "Duchy Chamber," possibly because

of its use in connection with the sittings of Parliament, or with the

meetings of the Privy Council there. The building was granted to

Cawarden in 1550.[289]

[Footnote 289: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, p. 8.]

Upon the death of Cawarden all his Blackfriars holdings passed into

the possession of Sir William More. From More, in 1596, James Burbage

purchased those sections of the Frater building which had originally

been granted to Cawarden[290]--that is, all the Frater building except

the Infirmary--for the sum of L600, in modern valuation about

$25,000.[291] Evidently he had profited by Farrant's experience with

More and by his own experience with Gyles Alleyn, and had determined

to risk no more leases, but in the future to be his own landlord, cost

what it might.

[Footnote 290: For the deed of sale see _ibid._, p. 60.]

[Footnote 291: It should be observed, however, that Burbage paid only

L100 down, and that he immediately mortgaged the property for more

than L200. The playhouse was not free from debt until 1605. See

Wallace, _The First London Theatre_, p. 23.]

The properties which he thus secured were:

(1) The Parliament Chamber, extending over the Hall, Parlor, and

Infirmary. This great chamber, it will be recalled, had previously

been divided by Cawarden into the Frith and Cheeke Lodgings;[292] but

now it was arranged as a single tenement of seven rooms, and was

occupied by the eminent physician William de Lawne:[293] "All those

seven great upper rooms as they are now divided, being all upon one

floor, and sometime being one great and entire room, with the roof

over the same, covered with lead." Up into this tenement led a special

pair of stairs which made it wholly independent of the rest of the

building.

[Footnote 292: The northern section of the Cheeke Lodging (a portion

of the old Buttery) which had constituted Farrant's private theatre,

and which was no real part of the Frater building, had been converted

by More into the Pipe Office.]

[Footnote 293: A prosperous physician. His son was one of the

illustrious founders of the Society of Apothecaries, and one of its

chief benefactors. His portrait may be seen to-day in Apothecaries'

Hall. See C.R.B. Barrett, _The History of the Society of Apothecaries

of London_.]

(2) The friar's "Parlor," now made into a tenement occupied by Thomas

Bruskett, and called "the Middle Rooms, or Middle Stories"--possibly

from the fact that it was the middle of three tenements, possibly from

the fact that having two cellars under its northern end it was the

middle of three stories. It is described as being fifty-two feet in

length north and south, and thirty-seven feet in width. Why a strip of

nine feet should have been detached on the eastern side is not clear;

but that this strip was also included in the sale to Burbage is shown

by later documents.

(3) The ancient "Hall" adjoining the "Parlor" on the north, and now

made into two rooms. These rooms were combined with the ground floor

of the Duchy Chamber building to constitute a tenement occupied by

Peter Johnson: "All those two lower rooms now in the occupation of the

said Peter Johnson, lying directly under part of the said seven great

upper rooms." The dimensions are not given, but doubtless the two

rooms together extended the entire width of the building and were

approximately as broad as the Duchy Chamber building, with which they

were united.

(4) The Duchy Chamber building "at the north end of the said seven

great upper rooms, and at the west side thereof." At the time of the

sale the ground floor of this building was occupied by Peter Johnson,

who had also the Hall adjoining it on the west; the middle story was

occupied by Charles Bradshaw; and the top story by Edward Merry.[294]

[Footnote 294: Mr. Wallace's description of the building and the way

in which it was converted into a playhouse (_The Children of the

Chapel at Blackfriars_, pp. 37-41) is incorrect. For the various

details cited above see the deed of sale to Burbage.]

Out of this heterogeneous property Burbage was confronted with the

problem of making a playhouse. Apparently he regarded the Parliament

Chamber as too low, or too inaccessible for the purposes of a theatre;

this part of his property, therefore, he kept as a lodging, and for

many years it served as a dormitory for the child-actors. The Duchy

Chamber building, being small and detached from the Frater building,

he reserved also as a lodging.[295] In the Hall and the Parlor,

however, he saw the possibility of a satisfactory auditorium. Let us

therefore examine this section of the Frater building more in detail,

and trace its history up to the time of the purchase.

[Footnote 295: This may have contained the two rooms in which Evans

lived, and "the schoolhouse and the chamber over the same," which are

described (see the documents in Fleay's _A Chronicle History of the

London Stage_, p. 210 ff.) as being "severed from the said great

hall." In another document this schoolhouse is described as "schola,

anglice _schoolhouse_, ad borealem finem Aulae praedictae." (Wallace,

_The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 40.)]

The Parlor was described as "a great room, paved," and was said to

have been "used and occupied by the friars themselves to their own

proper use as a parlor to dine and sup in."[296] Sir John Portynary,

whose house adjoined the Duchy Chamber, tells us that in 1550, when

King Edward granted the Blackfriars property to Cawarden, "Sir Thomas

Cawarden, knight, entered into the same house in the name of all that

which the King had given him within the said friars, and made his

lodging there; and about that time did invite this examinant and his

wife to supper there, together with diverse other gentlemen; and they

all supped together with the said Sir Thomas Cawarden, in the same

room [the Parlor] where the said school of fence is now kept, and did

there see a play."[297]

[Footnote 296: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, pp. 43, 47, 48.]

[Footnote 297: _Ibid._, p. 52.]

Later Cawarden leased the Parlor to a keeper of an ordinary: "One

Woodman did hold the said house where the said school of fence is

kept, and another house thereby of Sir Thomas Cawarden, and in the

other room kept an ordinary table, and had his way to the same through

the said house where the said school of fence is kept."[298]

[Footnote 298: _Ibid._, p. 51.]

In 1563 William Joyner established in the rooms the school of fence

mentioned above, which was still flourishing in 1576.[299]

[Footnote 299: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, p. 121.]

When in 1583 John Lyly became interested in the First Blackfriars

Playhouse, he obtained a lease of the rooms, but it is not clear for

what purpose. Later he sold the lease to Rocho Bonetti, the Italian

fencing-master, who established there his famous school of fence.[300]

In George Silver's _Paradoxes of Defence_, 1599, is a description of

Bonetti's school, which will, I think, help us to reconstruct in our

imagination the "great room, paved" which was destined to become

Shakespeare's playhouse:

He caused to be fairely drawne and set round about the

schoole all the Noblemen's and Gentlemen's Armes that were

his schollers, and, hanging right under their Armes, their

Rapiers, Daggers, Gloves of Male, and Gantlets. Also he had

benches and stooles, the roome being verie large, for

Gentlemen to sit about his schoole to behold his teaching.

He taught none commonly under twentie, fortie, fifty, or an

hundred pounds. And because all things should be verie

necessary for the Noblemen and Gentlemen, he had in his

schoole a large square table, with a green carpet, done

round with a verie brode rich fringe of gold; alwaies

standing upon it a verie faire standish covered with crimson

velvet, with inke, pens, pen-dust, and sealing-waxe, and

quiers of verie excellent fine paper, gilded, readie for the

Noblemen and Gentlemen (upon occasion) to write their

letters, being then desirous to follow their fight, to send

their men to dispatch their businesse.

And to know how the time passed, he had in one corner of his

Schoole, a Clocke, with a verie faire large diall; he had

within that Schoole a roome the which he called his privie

schoole, with manie weapons therein, where he did teach his

schollers his secret fight, after he had perfectly taught

them their rules. He was verie much loved in the Court.

[Footnote 300: _Ibid._, p. 122.]

We are further told by Silver that Bonetti took it upon himself "to

hit anie Englishman with a thrust upon anie button." It is no wonder

that Shakespeare ridiculed him in _Romeo and Juliet_ as "the very

butcher of a silk button," and laughed at his school and his fantastic

fencing-terms:

_Mercutio._ Ah! the immortal "passado"! the "punto reverso"!

the "hay"!

_Benvolio._ The what?

_Mercutio._ The pox of such antick, lisping, affecting

fantasticoes! These new tuners of accents!--"By Jesu, a very

good blade!"

At the date of the sale to Burbage, February 4, 1596, the fencing

school of Bonetti, had become "those rooms and lodgings, with the

kitchen thereunto adjoining, called the Middle Rooms or Middle

Stories, late being in the tenure or occupation of Rocco Bonetti, and

now being in the tenure or occupation of Thomas Bruskett, gentleman."

To make his playhouse Burbage removed all the partitions in the Middle

Rooms, and restored the Parlor to its original form--a great room

covering the entire breadth of the building, and extending fifty-two

feet in length from north to south. To this he added the Hall at the

north, which then existed as two rooms in the occupation of Peter

Johnson. The Hall and Parlor when combined made an auditorium

described as "per estimacionem in longitudine ab australe ad borealem

partem eiusdem sexaginta et sex pedes assissae sit plus sive minus, et

in latitudine ab occidentale ad orientalem partem eiusdem quadraginto

et sex pedes assissae sit plus sive minus."[301] The forty-six feet of

width corresponds to the interior width of the Frater building, for

although it was fifty-two feet wide in outside measurement, the stone

walls were three feet thick. The sixty-six feet of length probably

represents the fifty-two feet of the Parlor plus the breadth of the

Hall.

[Footnote 301: Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_,

p. 39, note 1.]

The ceiling of these two rooms must have been of unusual height. The

Infirmary, which was below the Parliament Chamber at the south, was

three stories high; and the windows of the Parlor, if we may believe

Pierce the Ploughman, were "wrought as a chirche":

An halle for an heygh kinge . an household to holden,

With brode bordes abouten . y-benched well clene,

With windowes of glas . wrought as a chirche.

[Illustration: REMAINS OF BLACKFRIARS

This remnant of the old monastery was discovered in 1872 on the

rebuilding of the offices of _The Times_. It illustrates the

substantial character of the Blackfriars buildings, and may even be a

part of the old Frater, for _The Times_ occupies that portion of the

monastery. The windows of the Frater, according to Pierce the

Ploughman, were "wrought as a chirche." (From a painting in the

Guildhall Museum.)]

As a result Burbage was able to construct within the auditorium at

least two galleries,[302] after the manner of the public theatres.

The Parliament Chamber above was kept, as I have stated, for

residential purposes. This is why the various legal documents almost

invariably refer to the playhouse as "that great hall or room, with

the rooms over the same."[303]

[Footnote 302: Mr. Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at

Blackfriars_, p. 42, quotes from the Epilogue to Marston's _The Dutch

Courtesan_, acted at Blackfriars, "And now, my fine Heliconian

gallants, and you, my worshipful friends in the middle region," and

adds that the "reference to 'the middle region' makes it clear there

were three" galleries. Does it not, however, indicate that there were

only two galleries?]

[Footnote 303: See the documents printed in Fleay's _A Chronicle

History of the London Stage_, pp. 211, 215, 240, etc. Mr. Wallace,

however (_The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 40 ff.),

would have us believe that an additional story was added: "the roof

was changed, and rooms, probably of the usual dormer sort, were built

above." I am quite sure he is mistaken.]

The main entrance to the playhouse was at the north, over the "great

yard" which extended from the Pipe Office to Water Lane.[304] The

stage was opposite this entrance, or at the southern end of the hall,

as is shown by one of the documents printed by Mr. Wallace.[305] Since

the building was not, like the other playhouses of London, open to the

sky, the illumination was supplied by candles, hung in branches over

the stage; as Gerschow noted, after visiting Blackfriars, "alle bey

Lichte agiret, welches ein gross Ansehen macht."[306] The obvious

advantage of artificial light for producing beautiful stage effects

must have added not a little to the popularity of the Blackfriars

Playhouse.

[Footnote 304: Cf. Playhouse Yard in the London of to-day.]

[Footnote 305: _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 43,

note 3.]

[Footnote 306: _The Diary of the Duke of Stettin-Pomerania_, in

_Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (1892), VI, 26.]

The cost of all the alterations and the equipment could hardly have

been less than L300, so that the total cost of the property was at

least L900, or in modern valuation approximately $35,000. Burbage's

sons, in referring to the building years later, declared that their

father had "made it into a playhouse with great charge."

"And," they added significantly, "with great trouble." The

aristocratic inhabitants of the Blackfriars precinct did not welcome

the appearance in their midst of a "public," or, as some more

scornfully designated it, a "common," playhouse; and when they

discovered the intentions of Burbage, they wrote a strong petition to

the Privy Council against the undertaking. This petition, presented to

the Council in November, 1596, I quote below in part:

To the right honorable the Lords and others of Her Majesty's

most honorable Privy Council.--Humbly shewing and beseeching

your honors, the inhabitants of the precinct of the

Blackfriars, London, that whereas one Burbage hath lately

bought certain rooms in the same precinct near adjoining

unto the dwelling houses of the right honorable the Lord

Chamberlaine [Lord Cobham] and the Lord of Hunsdon, which

rooms the said Burbage is now altering, and meaneth very

shortly to convert and turn the same into a common

playhouse, which will grow to be a very great annoyance and

trouble, not only to all the noblemen and gentlemen

thereabout inhabiting, but also a general inconvenience to

all the inhabitants of the same precinct, both by reason of

the great resort and gathering together of all manner of

vagrant and lewd persons ... as also for that there hath not

at any time heretofore been used any common playhouse within

the same precinct, but that now all players being banished

by the Lord Mayor from playing within the city ... they now

think to plant themselves in liberties, etc.[307]

[Footnote 307: For the full document see Halliwell-Phillipps,

_Outlines_, I, 304. For the date, see The Malone Society's

_Collections_, I, 91.]

The first person to sign the petition was the Dowager Lady Elizabeth

Russell; the second was none other than George Cary, Lord Hunsdon, at

the time the patron of Burbage's company of actors.[308] It is not

surprising, therefore, that as a result of this petition the Lords of

the Privy Council (of which Lord Cobham was a conspicuous member)

issued an order in which they "forbad the use of the said house for

plays."[309] This order wrecked the plans of Burbage quite as

effectively as did the stubbornness of Gyles Alleyn.

[Footnote 308: Shortly after this he was appointed Lord Chamberlain,

under which name his troupe was subsequently known.]

[Footnote 309: Petition of 1619, The Malone Society's _Collections_,

I, 91.]

Possibly the mental distress Burbage suffered at the hands of the

Privy Council and of Gyles Alleyn affected his health; at least he did

not long survive this last sling of fortune. In February, 1597, just

before the expiration of the Alleyn lease, he died, leaving the

Theatre to his son Cuthbert, the bookseller, Blackfriars to his

actor-son, Richard, the star of Shakespeare's troupe, and his troubles

to both. With good reason Cuthbert declared many years later that the

ultimate success of London theatres had "been purchased by the

infinite cost and pains of the family of Burbages."

When later in 1597 the Lord Chamberlain's Players were forced to leave

Cuthbert's Theatre, Richard Burbage was not able to establish them in

his comfortable Blackfriars house; instead, they first went to the old

Curtain in Shoreditch, and then, under the leadership of the Burbage

sons, erected for themselves a brand-new home on the Bankside, called

"The Globe."

The order of the Privy Council had summarily forbidden the use of

Blackfriars as a "public" playhouse. Its proprietor, however, Richard

Burbage, might take advantage of the precedent established in the days

of Farrant, and let the building for use as a "private" theatre.[310]

Exactly when he was first able to lease the building as a "private"

house we do not know, for the history of the building between 1597

(when it was completed) and 1600 (when it was certainly occupied by

the Children of the Chapel) is very indistinct. We have no definite

evidence to connect the Chapel Children, or, indeed, any specific

troupe, with Blackfriars during these years. Yet prior to 1600 the

building seems to have been used for acting. Richard Burbage himself

seems to say so. In leasing the building to Evans, in 1600, he says

that he considered "with himself that" Evans could not pay the rent

"except the said Evans could erect and keep a company of playing-boys

or others to play plays and interludes in the said playhouse in such

sort _as before time had been there used_."[311] Now, unless this

refers to Farrant's management of the Chapel Boys in Blackfriars--nearly

a quarter of a century earlier--it means that before 1600 some actors,

presumably "playing-boys," had used Burbage's theatre. Moreover, there

seems to be evidence to show that the troupe thus vaguely referred to

was under the management of Evans; for, in referring to his lease of

Blackfriars in 1600, Evans describes the playhouse as "then or late in

the tenure or occupation of your said oratour."[312] What these vague

references mean we cannot now with our limited knowledge determine.

But there is not sufficient evidence to warrant the usual assumption

that Evans and Giles had opened the Blackfriars with the Children of

the Chapel in 1597.[313]

[Footnote 310: The constables and other officers in the Petition of

1619 say: "The owner of the said playhouse, doth under the name of a

private house ... convert the said house to a public playhouse." (The

Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 91.)]

[Footnote 311: Fleay, _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, p.

234.]

[Footnote 312: _Ibid._, p. 211.]

[Footnote 313: This theory has been urged by Fleay, by Mr. Wallace in

_The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, and by others.]

The known history of Blackfriars as a regular theatre may be said to

begin in the autumn of 1600. On September 2 of that year, Henry Evans

signed a lease of the playhouse for a period of twenty-one years, at

an annual rental of L40. This interesting step on the part of Evans

calls for a word of explanation as to his plans.

The Children of the Chapel Royal, who had attained such glory at

Blackfriars during the Farrant-Hunnis-Evans-Oxford-Lyly regime, had

thereafter sunk into dramatic insignificance. Since 1584, when Lyly

was forced to give up his playhouse, they had not presented a play at

Court. Probably they did not entirely cease to act, for they can be

vaguely traced in the provinces during a part of this period; but

their dramatic glory was almost wholly eclipsed. Evans, who had

managed the Boys under Hunnis, Oxford, and Lyly, hoped now to

reestablish the Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars as they had been

in his younger days. Like James Burbage, he was a man of ideas. His

plan was to interest in his undertaking the Master of the Chapel,

Nathaniel Giles, who had succeeded to the office at the death of

Hunnis in 1597, and then to make practical use of the patent granted

to the Masters of the Children to take up boys for Her Majesty's

service. Such a patent, in the normal course of events, had been

granted to Giles, as it had been to his predecessors. It read in part

as follows:

Elizabeth, by the grace of God, &c., to all mayors,

sheriffs, bailiffs, constables, and all other our officers,

greeting. For that it is meet that our Chapel Royal should

be furnished with well-singing children from time to time,

we have, and by these presents do authorize our

well-beloved servant, Nathaniel Giles, Master of our

Children of our said Chapel, or his deputy, being by his

bill subscribed and sealed, so authorized, and having this

our present commission with him, to take such and so many

children as he, or his sufficient deputy, shall think meet,

in all cathedral, collegiate, parish churches, chapels, or

any other place or places, as well within liberty as

without, within this our realm of England, whatsoever they

be.[314]

[Footnote 314: The full commission is printed in Wallace, _The

Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 61.]

In such a commission Evans saw wonderful possibilities. He reasoned

that since the Queen had forced upon the Chapel Children the twofold

service of singing at royal worship and of acting plays for royal

entertainment, this twofold service should be met by a twofold

organization, the one part designed mainly to furnish sacred music,

the other designed mainly to furnish plays. Such a dual organization,

it seemed to him, was now more or less necessary, since the number of

boy choristers in the Chapel Royal was limited to twelve, whereas the

acting of plays demanded at least twice as many. Once the principle

that the Chapel Royal should supply the Queen with plays was granted,

the commission could be used to furnish the necessary actors; and the

old fiction, established by Farrant and Hunnis, of using a "private"

playhouse as a means of exercising or training the boys for Court

service, would enable the promoters to give public performances and

thus handsomely reimburse themselves for their trouble.

Such was Evans's scheme, based upon his former experience with the

Children at Farrant's Blackfriars, and suggested, perhaps, by the

existence of Burbage's Blackfriars now forbidden to the "common"

players. He presented his scheme to Giles, the Master of the Children;

and Giles, no doubt, presented it at Court; for he would hardly dare

thus abuse the Queen's commission, or thus make a public spectacle of

the royal choristers, without in some way first consulting Her

Majesty, and securing at least her tacit consent. That Giles and Evans

did secure royal permission to put their scheme into operation is

certain, although the exact nature of this permission is not clear.

Later, for misdemeanors on the part of the management, the Star

Chamber ordered "that all assurances made to the said Evans concerning

the said house, or plays, or interludes, should be utterly void, and

to be delivered up to be cancelled."[315]

[Footnote 315: Fleay, _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, p.

248.]

Armed with these written "assurances," and with the royal commission

to take up children, Evans and Giles began to form their company. This

explains the language used by Heminges and Burbage: "let the said

playhouse unto Henry Evans ... who intended then presently to erect or

set up a company of boys."[316] Their method of recruiting players

may best be told by Henry Clifton, in his complaint to the Queen:

But so it is, most excellent Sovereign, that the said

Nathaniel Giles, confederating himself with one James

Robinson, Henry Evans, and others,[317] yet unto Your

Majesty's said subject unknown how [many], by color of Your

Majesty's said letters patents, and the trust by Your

Highness thereby to him, the said Nathaniel Giles,

committed, endeavoring, conspiring, and complotting how to

oppress diverse of Your Majesty's humble and faithful

subjects, and thereby to make unto themselves an unlawful

gain and benefit, they, the said confederates, devised,

conspired, and concluded, for their own corrupt gain and

lucre, to erect, set up, furnish, and maintain a playhouse,

or place in the Blackfriars, within Your Majesty's city of

London; and to the end they might the better furnish their

said plays and interludes with children, whom they thought

most fittest to act and furnish the said plays, they, the

said confederates, abusing the authority and trust by Your

Highness to him, the said Nathaniel Giles, and his deputy or

deputies, by Your Highness's said letters patents given and

reposed, hath, sithence Your Majesty's last free and general

pardon, most wrongfully, unduly, and unjustly taken diverse

and several children from diverse and sundry schools of

learning and other places, and apprentices to men of trade

from their masters, no way fitting for Your Majesty's

service in or for your Chapel Royal, but the children have

so taken and employed in acting and furnishing of the said

plays and interludes, so by them complotted and agreed to

be erected, furnished, and maintained, against the wills of

the said children, their parents, tutors, masters, and

governors, and to the no small grief and oppressions [of]

Your Majesty's true and faithful subjects. Amongst which

numbers, so by the persons aforesaid and their agents so

unjustly taken, used and employed, they have unduly taken

and so employed one John Chappell, a grammar school scholar

of one Mr. Spykes School near Cripplegate, London; John

Motteram, a grammar scholar in the free school at

Westminster; Nathaniel Field, a scholar of a grammar school

in London kept by one Mr. Monkaster;[318] Alvery Trussell,

an apprentice to one Thomas Gyles; one Phillipp Pykman and

[one] Thomas Grymes, apprentices to Richard and George

Chambers; Salmon Pavy,[319] apprentice to one Peerce; being

children no way able or fit for singing, nor by any the said

confederates endeavoured to be taught to sing, but by them,

the said confederates, abusively employed, as aforesaid,

only in plays and interludes.[320]

[Footnote 316: _Ibid._, p. 234. Note that Evans is not to "continue" a

troupe there, as Fleay and Wallace believe, but to "erect" one.]

[Footnote 317: Possibly Robinson and the "others" were merely

deputies.]

[Footnote 318: Field became later famous both as an actor and

playwright. His portrait is preserved at Dulwich College.]

[Footnote 319: Salathiel Pavy, whose excellent acting is celebrated in

Jonson's tender elegy, quoted in part below.]

[Footnote 320: Star Chamber Proceedings, printed in full by Fleay,

_op. cit._, p. 127.]

In spite of the obvious animosity inspiring Clifton's words, we get

from his complaint a clear notion of how Evans and Giles supplemented

the Children of the Chapel proper with actors. In a short time they

brought together at Blackfriars a remarkable troupe of boy-players,

who, with Jonson and Chapman as their poets, began to astonish London.

For, in spite of certain limitations, "the children" could act with a

charm and a grace that often made them more attractive than their

grown-up rivals. Middleton advises the London gallant "to call in at

the Blackfriars, where he should see a nest of boys able to ravish a

man."[321] Jonson gives eloquent testimony to the power of little

Salathiel Pavy to portray the character of old age:

Years he numbered scarce thirteen

When Fates turned cruel,

Yet three filled zodiacs had he been

The stage's jewel;

And did act, what now we moan,

Old men so duly,

As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one,

He played so truly.[322]

[Footnote 321: _Father Hubbard's Tales_ (ed. Bullen, VIII, 77).]

[Footnote 322: Jonson, _Epigrams_, CXX, _An Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy,

a Child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel_.]

And Samuel Pepys records the effectiveness of a child-actor in the

role of women: "One Kinaston, a boy, acted the Duke's sister, but made

the loveliest lady that ever I saw in my life."[323]

[Footnote 323: _Diary_, August 18, 1660.]

Moreover, to expert acting these Boys of the Chapel Royal added the

charms of vocal and instrumental music, for which many of them had

been specially trained. The Duke of Stettin-Pomerania, who upon his

grand tour of the European countries in 1602 attended a play at

Blackfriars, bears eloquent testimony to the musical powers of the

children: "For a whole hour before the play begins, one listens to

charming [_koestliche_] instrumental music played on organs, lutes,

pandorins, mandolins, violins, and flutes; as, indeed, on this

occasion, a boy sang _cum voce tremula_ to the accompaniment of a

bass-viol, so delightfully [_lieblich_] that, if the Nuns at Milan did

not excel him, we had not heard his equal in our travels."[324] In

addition, the Children were provided with splendid apparel--though not

at the cost of the Queen, as Mr. Wallace contends.[325] Naturally they

became popular. On January 6, 1601, they were summoned to Court to

entertain Her Majesty--the first recorded performance of the Children

of the Chapel at Court since the year 1584, when Sir William More

closed the first Blackfriars.

[Footnote 324: _The Diary of the Duke of Stettin-Pomerania_, printed

in _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (1890). The diary

was written by the Duke's tutor, Gerschow, at the express command of

the Duke.]

[Footnote 325: It is hard to believe Mr. Wallace's novel theory that

the Children of the Chapel were subsidized by Elizabeth, as presented

in his otherwise valuable _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_.

Burbage and Heminges knew nothing of such a royal patronage at

Blackfriars (see Fleay, _op. cit._, p. 236), nor did Kirkham, the

Yeoman of the Revels (_ibid._, p. 248). Kirkham and his partners spent

L600 on apparel, etc., according to Kirkham's statement.]

Perhaps the most interesting testimony to the success of the Chapel

Children in their new playhouse is that uttered by Shakespeare in

_Hamlet_ (1601), in which he speaks of the performances by the "little

eyases" as a "late innovation." The success of the "innovation" had

driven Shakespeare and his troupe of grown-up actors to close the

Globe and travel in the country, even though they had _Hamlet_ as an

attraction. The good-natured way in which Shakespeare treats the

situation is worthy of special observation:

_Ham._ What players are they?

_Ros._ Even those you were wont to take delight in, the

tragedians of the city.[326]

_Ham._ How chances it they travel? their residence, both in

reputation and profit, was better both ways.[327]

_Ros._ I think their inhibition comes by means of the late

innovation.

_Ham._ Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was

in the city? are they so followed?

_Ros._ No, indeed, they are not!

_Ham._ How comes it? do they grow rusty?

_Ros._ Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but

there is, sir, an aerie of children,[328] little eyases,

that cry out on the top of question, and are most

tyrannically clapped for 't. These are now the fashion, and

so berattle the "common stages"--so they call them--that

many wearing rapiers [i.e., gallants] are afraid of

goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.

_Ham._ What! are they children? who maintains 'em? how are

they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than

they can sing?

[Footnote 326: The Children were acting light comedies such as

_Cynthia's Revels_; the Lord Chamberlain's Men were acting _Hamlet_.]

[Footnote 327: Shakespeare's troupe is known to have been traveling in

the spring of 1601.]

[Footnote 328: Cf. Middleton's _Father Hubbard's Tales_, already

quoted, "a nest of boys." Possibly the idea was suggested by the fact

that the children were lodged and fed in the building.]

The passage ends with the question from Hamlet: "Do the boys carry it

away?" which gives Rosencrantz an opportunity to pun on the sign of

the Globe Playhouse: "Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his

load, too."

Shortly after the great dramatist had penned these words, the

management of Blackfriars met with disaster. The cause, however, went

back to December 13, 1600, when Giles and Evans were gathering their

players. In their overweening confidence they made a stupid blunder in

"taking up" for their troupe the only son and heir of Henry Clifton, a

well-to-do gentleman of Norfolk, who had come to London for the

purpose of educating the boy. Clifton says in his complaint that

Giles, Evans, and their confederates, "well knowing that your

subject's said son had no manner of sight in song, nor skill in

music," on the 13th day of December, 1600, did "waylay the said Thomas

Clifton" as he was "walking quietly from your subject's said house

towards the said school," and "with great force and violence did seize

and surprise, and him with like force and violence did, to the great

terror and hurt of him, the said Thomas Clifton, haul, pull, drag, and

carry away to the said playhouse." As soon as the father learned of

this, he hurried to the playhouse and "made request to have his said

son released." But Giles and Evans "utterly and scornfully refused to

do" this. Whereupon Clifton threatened to complain to the Privy

Council. But Evans and Giles "in very scornful manner willed your said

subject to complain to whom he would." Clifton suggested that "it was

not fit that a gentleman of his sort should have his son and heir

(and that his only son) to be so basely used." Giles and Evans "most

arrogantly then and there answered that they had authority sufficient

so to take any nobleman's son in this land"; and further to irritate

the father, they immediately put into young Thomas's hand "a scroll of

paper, containing part of one of their said plays or interludes, and

him, the said Thomas Clifton, commanded to learn the same by heart,"

with the admonition that "if he did not obey the said Evans, he should

be surely whipped."[329]

[Footnote 329: The full complaint is printed by Fleay, _op. cit._, p.

127.]

Clifton at once appealed to his friend, Sir John Fortescue, a member

of the Privy Council, at whose order young Thomas was released and

sent back to his studies. Apparently this ended the episode. But

Clifton, nourishing his animosity, began to investigate the management

of Blackfriars, and to collect evidence of similar abuses of the

Queen's commission, with the object of making complaint to the Star

Chamber. In October, 1601, Evans, it seems, learned of Clifton's

purpose, for on the 21st of that month he deeded all his property to

his son-in-law, Alexander Hawkins.[330] Clifton finally presented his

complaint to the Star Chamber on December 15, 1601,[331] but his

complaint was probably not acted on until early in 1602, for during

the Christmas holidays the Children were summoned as usual to present

their play before the Queen.[332]

[Footnote 330: _Ibid._, pp. 244-45.]

[Footnote 331: Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_,

p. 84, note 4.]

[Footnote 332: On December 29, 1601, Sir Dudley Carleton wrote to his

friend John Chamberlain: "The Queen dined this day privately at My

Lord Chamberlain's. I came even now from the Blackfriars, where I saw

her at the play with all her _candidae auditrices_." From this it has

been generally assumed that Elizabeth visited the playhouse in

Blackfriars to see the Children act there; and Mr. Wallace, in his

_The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, pp. 26, 87, 95-97, lays

great emphasis upon it to show that the Queen was directly responsible

for establishing and managing the Children at Blackfriars. But the

assumption that the Queen attended a performance at the Blackfriars

Playhouse is, I think, unwarranted. The Lord Chamberlain at this time

was Lord Hunsdon, who lived "in the Blackfriars." No doubt on this

Christmas occasion he entertained the Queen with a great dinner, and

after the dinner with a play given, not in a playhouse, but in his

mansion. (Lord Cobham, who was formerly Lord Chamberlain, and who also

lived in Blackfriars, had similarly entertained the Queen with plays

"in Blackfriars"; cf. also The Malone Society's _Collections_, II,

52.) Furthermore, the actors on this occasion were probably not the

Children of the Chapel, as Mr. Wallace thinks, but Lord Hunsdon's own

troupe. Possibly one of Shakespeare's new plays (_Hamlet_?) was then

presented before the Queen for the first time.]

Shortly after this, however, the Star Chamber passed on Clifton's

complaint. The decree itself is lost, but the following reference to

it is made in a subsequent lawsuit: "The said Evans ... was censured

by the right honorable Court of Star Chamber for his unorderly

carriage and behaviour in taking up of gentlemen's children against

their wills and to employ them for players, and for other misdemeanors

in the said Decree contained; and further that all assurances made to

the said Evans concerning the said house or plays or interludes

should be utterly void, and to be delivered up to be canceled."[333]

Doubtless the decree fell with equal force upon Giles and the others

connected with the enterprise, for after the Star Chamber decree Giles

and Robinson disappear from the management of the playhouse. Evans was

forbidden to have any connection with plays there; and for a time, no

doubt, the building was closed.

[Footnote 333: Fleay, _op. cit._, p. 248.]

Evans, however, still held the lease, and was under the necessity of

paying the rent as before. Then came forward Edward Kirkham, who, in

his official capacity as Yeoman of the Revels, had become acquainted

with the dramatic activities of the Children of the Chapel. He saw an

opportunity to take over the Blackfriars venture now that Evans and

probably Giles had been forbidden by the Star Chamber to have any

connection with plays in that building. Having associated with him

William Rastell, a merchant, and Thomas Kendall,[334] a haberdasher,

he made overtures to Evans, the owner of the lease. Evans, however,

was determined to retain a half-interest in the playhouse, and to

evade the order of the Star Chamber by using his son-in-law, Alexander

Hawkins, as his agent. Accordingly, on April 20, 1602, "Articles of

Agreement" were signed between Evans and Hawkins on the one part, and

Kirkham, Rastell, and Kendall on the other part, whereby the latter

were admitted to a half-interest in the playhouse and in the troupe of

child-actors. Kirkham, Rastell, and Kendall agreed to pay one-half of

the annual rent of L40,[335] to pay one-half of the repairs on the

building, and in addition to spend L400 on apparel and furnishings for

the troupe. Under this reorganization--with Evans as a secret

partner--the Children continued to act with their customary success.

[Footnote 334: We find in Henslowe's _Diary_ a player named William

Kendall, but we do not know that he was related to Thomas.]

[Footnote 335: The agreements remind one of the organization of the

Globe. It seems clear that Kirkham, Rastell, and Kendall held their

moiety in joint tenancy.]

About a month later, however, Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain,

whose house adjoined Blackfriars, seems to have inquired into the

affairs of the new organization.[336] What Kirkham told him led him to

order Evans off the premises. Evans informs us that he was "commanded

by his Lordship to avoid and leave the same; for fear of whose

displeasure, the complainant [Evans] was forced to leave the

country."[337] He felt it prudent to remain away from London "for a

long space and time"; yet he "lost nothing," for "he left the said

Alexander Hawkins to deal for him and to take such benefit of the said

house as should belong unto him in his absence."[338]

[Footnote 336: Fleay, _op. cit._, pp. 211-13; 216; 220.]

[Footnote 337: _Ibid._, p. 220.]

[Footnote 338: _Ibid._, p. 217.]

If we may judge from the enthusiastic account given by the Duke of

Stettin-Pomerania, who visited Blackfriars in the September

following, the Children were just as effective under Kirkham's

management as they had been under the management of Giles and Evans.

It is to be noted, however, that Elizabeth did not again invite the

Blackfriars troupe to the Court.

The death of the Queen in 1603 led to the closing of all playhouses.

This was followed by a long attack of the plague, so that for many

months Blackfriars was closed, and "by reason thereof no such profit

and commodity was raised and made of and by the said playhouse as was

hoped for."[339] Evans actually "treated" with Richard Burbage "about

the surrendering and giving up the said lease," but Burbage declined

to consider the matter.

[Footnote 339: Fleay, _op. cit._, p. 235.]

Shortly after this the plague ceased, and acting, stimulated by King

James's patronage, was resumed with fervor. The Blackfriars Company

was reorganized under Edward Kirkham, Alexander Hawkins (acting for

Evans), Thomas Kendall, and Robert Payne: and on February 4, 1604, it

secured a royal patent to play under the title "The Children of the

Queen's Revels."[340] According to this patent, the poet Samuel

Daniel was specially appointed to license their plays: "Provided

always that no such plays or shows shall be presented before the said

Queen our wife by the said Children, or by them anywhere publicly

acted, but by the approbation and allowance of Samuel Daniel, whom her

pleasure is to appoint for that purpose." At this time, too, or not

long after, John Marston was allowed a share in the organization, and

thus was retained as one of its regular playwrights.

[Footnote 340: For the patent, commonly misdated January 30, see The

Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 267. Mr. Wallace, in _The Century

Magazine_ (September, 1910, p. 747), says that the company secured its

patent "through the intercessions of the poet Samuel Daniel." It is

true that the Children of Her Majesty's Royal Chamber of Bristol

secured their patent in 1615 at the intercession of Daniel, but I know

of no evidence that he intervened in behalf of the Blackfriars

troupe.]

The success of the new company is indicated by the fact that it was

summoned to present a play at Court in February, 1604, and again two

plays in January, 1605. Evans's activity in the management of the

troupe in spite of the order of the Star Chamber is evident from the

fact that the payment for the last two court performances was made

directly to him.

In the spring of 1604 the company gave serious offense by acting

Samuel Daniel's _Philotas_, which was supposed to relate to the

unfortunate Earl of Essex; but the blame must have fallen largely on

Daniel, who not only wrote the play, but also licensed its

performance. He was summoned before the Privy Council to explain, and

seems to have fully proved his innocence. Shortly after this he

published the play with an apology affixed.[341]

[Footnote 341: A letter from Daniel to the Earl of Devonshire

vindicating the play is printed in Grosart's _Daniel_, I, xxii.]

The following year the Children gave much more serious offense by

acting _Eastward Hoe_, a comedy in which Marston, Chapman, and Jonson

collaborated. Not only did the play ridicule the Scots in general, and

King James's creation of innumerable knights in particular, but one of

the little actors was actually made, it seems, to mimic the royal

brogue: "I ken the man weel; he is one of my thirty pound Knights."

Marston escaped by timely flight, but Jonson and Chapman were arrested

and lodged in jail, and were for a time in some danger of having their

nostrils slit and their ears cropped. Both Chapman and Jonson asserted

that they were wholly innocent, and Chapman openly put the blame of

the offensive passages on Marston.[342] Marston, however, was beyond

the reach of the King's wrath, so His Majesty punished instead the men

in control of Blackfriars. It was discovered that the manager,

Kirkham, had presented the play without securing the Lord

Chamberlain's allowance. As a result, he and the others in charge of

the Children were prohibited from any further connection with the

playhouse. This doubtless explains the fact that Kirkham shortly after

appears as one of the managers of Paul's Boys.[343] It explains, also,

the following statement made by Evans in the course of one of the

later legal documents: "After the King's most excellent Majesty, upon

some misdemeanors committed in or about the plays there, _and

specially upon the defendant's_ [Kirkham's] _acts and doings there_,

had prohibited that no plays should be more used there," etc.[344] Not

only was Kirkham driven from the management of the troupe and the

playhouse closed for a time, but the Children were denied the Queen's

patronage. No longer were they allowed to use the high-sounding title

"The Children of the Queen's Majesty's Revels"; instead, we find them

described merely as "The Children of the Revels," or as "The Children

of Blackfriars."[345]

[Footnote 342: See Dobell, "Newly Discovered Documents," in _The

Athenaeum_, March 30, 1901.]

[Footnote 343: Cunningham, _Revels_, p. xxxviii.]

[Footnote 344: Fleay, _op. cit._, p. 221.]

[Footnote 345: Except carelessly, as when sometimes called "The

Children of the Chapel."]

For a time, no doubt, affairs at the playhouse were at a standstill.

Evans again sought to surrender his lease to Burbage, but without

success.[346] Marston, having escaped the wrath of the King by flight,

decided to end his career as a playwright and turn country parson. It

was shortly after this, in all probability, that he sold his share in

the Blackfriars organization to one Robert Keysar, a goldsmith of

London, for the sum of L100.[347]

[Footnote 346: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p.

82.]

[Footnote 347: _Ibid._, pp. 81, 86, 89, 93.]

Keysar, it seems, undertook to reopen the playhouse, and to continue

the Children there at his own expense.[348] From the proprietors he

rented the playhouse, the stock of apparel, the furnishings, and

playbooks. This, I take it, explains the puzzling statement made by

Kirkham some years later:

This repliant [Kirkham] and his said partners [Rastell and

Kendall] have had and received the sum of one hundred pounds

per annum for their part and moiety in the premises without

any manner of charges whatsoever [i.e., during Kirkham's

management of the troupe prior to 1605].[349] And after that

this replyant and his said partners had received the

foresaid profits [i.e., after Kirkham and his partners had

to give up the management of the Children in 1605], the said

Children, which the said Evans in his answer affirmeth to be

the Queen's Children [i.e., they are no longer the Queen's

Children, for after 1605 they had been deprived of the

Queen's patronage; but Kirkham was in error, for Evans with

legal precision had referred to the company as 'The Queen's

Majesty's Children of the Revels (for so it was often

called)'] were masters themselves [i.e., their own

managers], and this complainant and his said partners

received of them, and of one Keysar who was interest with

them, above the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds per

annum only for the use of the said great hall, without all

manner of charges, as this replyant will make it manifest to

this honorable court.[350]

[Footnote 348: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p. 80

ff.]

[Footnote 349: That is, L33, more or less, a share. We have

documentary evidence to show that a share in the Red Bull produced

L30, and a share in the Globe L30 to L40 per annum.]

[Footnote 350: Fleay, _op. cit._, p. 249. The yearly rental must have

included not only the playhouse and its equipment, but the playbooks,

apparel, properties, etc., belonging to the Children. These were on

July 26, 1608, divided up among the sharers, Kirkham, Rastell,

Kendall, and Evans.]

Under Keysar's management the Blackfriars troupe continued to act as

the Children of the Revels. But, unfortunately, they had not learned

wisdom from their recent experience, and in the very following year we

find them again in serious trouble. John Day's _Isle of Guls_, acted

in February, 1606, gave great offense to the Court. Sir Edward Hoby,

in a letter to Sir Thomas Edwards,[351] writes: "At this time was much

speech of a play in the Blackfriars, where, in the _Isle of Guls_,

from the highest to the lowest, all men's parts were acted of two

diverse nations. As I understand, sundry were committed to

Bridewell."[352]

[Footnote 351: Birch, _Court and Times of James the First_, I, 60;

quoted by E.K. Chambers, in _Modern Language Review_, IV, 158.]

[Footnote 352: Possibly an aftermath of the King's displeasure is to

be found in the cancellation of Giles's long-standing commission to

take up boys for the Chapel, and the issuance of a new commission to

him, November 7, 1606, with the distinct proviso that "none of the

said choristers or children of the Chapel so to be taken by force of

this commission shall be used or employed as commedians or stage

players." (The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 357.)]

The Children, however, were soon allowed to resume playing, and they

continued for a time without mishap. But in the early spring of 1608

they committed the most serious offense of all by acting Chapman's

_Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron_. The French

Ambassador took umbrage at the uncomplimentary representation of the

contemporary French Court, and had an order made forbidding them to

act the play. But the Children, "voyant toute la Cour dehors, ne

laisserent de la faire, et non seulement cela, mais y introduiserent

la Reine et Madame de Verneuil, traitant celle-ci fort mal de

paroles, et lui donnant un soufflet." Whereupon the French Ambassador

made special complaint to Salisbury, who ordered the arrest of the

author and the actors. "Toutefois il ne s'en trouva que trois, qui

aussi-tot furent menes a la prison ou ils sont encore; mais le

principal, qui est le compositeur, echapa."[353] The Ambassador

observes also that a few days before the Children of the Revels had

given offense by a play on King James: "Un jour ou deux avant, ils

avoient depeche leur Roi, sa mine d'Ecosse, et tous ses Favoris d'une

etrange sorte; car apres lui avoir fait depiter le Ciel sur le vol

d'un oisseau, et fait battre un Gentilhomme pour avoir rompu ses

chiens, ils le depeignoient ivre pour le moins une fois le jour."[354]

As a result of these two offenses, coming as a climax to a long series

of such offenses, the King was "extremement irrite contre ces

marauds-la," and gave order for their immediate suppression. This

marked the end of the child-actors at Blackfriars.

[Footnote 353: From the report of the French Ambassador, M. de la

Boderie, to M. de Puisieux at Paris, _Ambassades de Monsieur de la

Boderie en Angleterre_, 1750, III, 196; quoted by E.K. Chambers in

_Modern Language Review_, IV, 158.]

[Footnote 354: The name of this play is not known; probably the King

was satirized in a comic scene foisted upon an otherwise innocent

piece. Mr. Wallace, in _The Century Magazine_ (September, 1910, p.

747), says: "From a document I have found in France the Blackfriars

boys now satirized the King's efforts to raise money, made local jokes

on the recent discovery of his silver mine in Scotland, brought him on

the stage as drunk, and showed such to be his condition at least three

times a day, caricatured him in his favorite pastime of hawking, and

represented him as swearing and cursing at a gentleman for losing a

bird." I do not know what document Mr. Wallace has found; the French

document quoted above has been known for a long time.]

Naturally Kirkham, Rastell, and Kendall, since there was "no profit

made of the said house, but a continual rent of forty pounds to be

paid for the same," became sick of their bargain with Evans. An

additional reason for their wishing to withdraw finally from the

enterprise was the rapid increase of the plague, which about July 25

closed all playhouses. So Kirkham, "at or about the 26 of July, 1608,

caused the apparrels, properties, and goods belonging to the

copartners, sharers, and masters" to be divided. Kirkham and his

associates took away their portions, and "quit the place," the

one-time manager using to Evans some unkind words: "said he would deal

no more with it, 'for,' quod he, 'it is a base thing,' or used words

to such or very like effect."[355] Evans, thus deserted by Kirkham,

Rastell, and Kendall, regarded the organization of the Blackfriars as

dissolved; he "delivered up their commission which he had under the

Great Seal authorizing them to play, and discharged diverse of the

partners and poets."

[Footnote 355: Fleay, _op. cit._, pp. 221-22.]

Robert Keysar, however, the old manager, laid plans to keep the

Children together, and continue them as a troupe after the cessation

of the plague. For a while, we are told, he maintained them at his own

expense, "in hope to have enjoyed his said bargain ... upon the

ceasing of the general sickness."[356] And he expected, by virtue of

the share he had purchased from John Marston, to be able to use the

Blackfriars Playhouse for his purpose.

[Footnote 356: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, pp.

83, 97.]

In the meanwhile Evans began negotiations with Burbage for the

surrender of the lease: "By reason the said premises lay then and had

long lyen void and without use for plays, whereby the same became not

only burthensome and unprofitable unto the said Evans, but also ran

far into decay for want of reparations ... the said Evans began to

treat with the said Richard Burbage about a surrender of the said

Evans his said lease."[357] This time Burbage listened to the

proposal, for he and his fellow-actors at the Globe "considered that

the house would be fit for themselves." So in August, 1608, he agreed

to take over the building for the use of the King's Men.

[Footnote 357: _Ibid._, p. 87.]

Even after Evans's surrender of the lease, Keysar, it seems, made an

effort to keep the Children together. On the following Christmas,

1608-09, we find a record of payment to him for performances at Court,

by "The Children of Blackfriars." But soon after this the troupe must

have been disbanded. Keysar says that they were "enforced to be

dispersed and turned away to the abundant hurt of the said young

men";[358] and the Burbages and Heminges declare that the children

"were dispersed and driven each of them to provide for himself by

reason that the plays ceasing in the City of London, either through

sickness, or for some other cause, he, the said complainant [Keysar],

was no longer able to maintain them together."[359] In the autumn of

1609, however, Keysar assembled the Children again, reorganized them

with the assistance of Philip Rosseter, and placed them in Whitefriars

Playhouse, recently left vacant by the disruption of the Children of

His Majesty's Revels. Their subsequent history will be found related

in the chapter dealing with that theatre.

[Footnote 358: _Ibid._, p. 90.]

[Footnote 359: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p.

97.]

When in August, 1608, Richard Burbage secured from Evans the surrender

of the Blackfriars lease, he at once proceeded to organize from the

Globe Company a syndicate to operate the building as a playhouse. He

admitted to partnership in the new enterprise all of the then sharers

in the Globe except Witter and Nichols, outsiders who had secured

their interest through marriage with the heirs of Pope and Phillips,

and who, therefore, were not entitled to any consideration. In

addition, he admitted Henry Evans, doubtless in fulfillment of a

condition in the surrender of the lease. The syndicate thus formed was

made up of seven equal sharers, as follows: Richard Burbage, Cuthbert

Burbage, Henry Evans, William Shakespeare, John Heminges, Henry

Condell, and William Slye. These sharers leased the building from

Richard Burbage for a period of twenty-one years,[360] at the old

rental of L40 per annum, each binding himself to pay annually the sum

of L5 14_s._ 4_d._[361] The method of distributing the profits between

the sharers (known as "housekeepers") and the actors (known as the

"company") was to be the same as that practiced at the Globe.[362]

[Footnote 360: Twenty-one years was a very common term for a lease to

run; but in this case, no doubt, it was intended that the lease of

Blackfriars should last as long as the lease of the Globe, which then

had exactly twenty-one years to run.]

[Footnote 361: Shortly after this agreement had been made William Slye

died, and his executrix delivered up his share to Richard Burbage "to

be cancelled and made void." See the Heminges-Osteler documents

printed by Mr. Wallace in the London _Times_, October 4, 1909. In 1611

Burbage let William Osteler have this share.]

[Footnote 362: The method is clearly explained in the documents of

1635 printed by Halliwell-Phillipps, in _Outlines_, I, 312.]

Soon after this organization was completed, the King's Men moved from

the Globe to the Blackfriars. They did not, of course, intend to

abandon the Globe. Their plan was to use the Blackfriars as a "winter

home," and the Globe as a "summer house."[363] Malone observed from

the Herbert Manuscript that "the King's Company usually began to play

at the Globe in the month of May";[364] although he failed to state at

what time in the autumn they usually moved to the Blackfriars, the

evidence points to the first of November.

[Footnote 363: See Wright, _Historia Histrionica_, Hazlitt's Dodsley,

XV, 406.]

[Footnote 364: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 71.]

Such a plan had many advantages. For one thing, it would prevent the

pecuniary losses often caused by a severe winter. In the _Poetaster_

(1601), Jonson makes Histrio, representing the Globe Players, say: "O,

it will get us a huge deal of money, and we have need on't, for this

winter has made us all poorer than so many starved snakes; nobody

comes at us."[365] This could not be said of the King's Men after they

moved to the Blackfriars. Edward Kirkham, a man experienced in

theatrical finances, offered to prove to the court in 1612 that the

King's Men "got, and as yet doth, more in one winter in the said great

hall by a thousand pounds than they were used to get on the

Bankside."[366]

[Footnote 365: Act III, scene iv. Cf. also Webster's Preface to _The

White Devil_, acted at the Red Bull about 1610.]

[Footnote 366: Fleay, _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, p.

248.]

Kirkham's testimony as to the popularity of the King's Men in their

winter home is borne out by a petition to the city authorities made by

"the constables and other officers and inhabitants of Blackfriars" in

January, 1619. They declared that to the playhouse "there is daily

such resort of people, and such multitudes of coaches (whereof many

are hackney-coaches, bringing people of all sorts), that sometimes all

our streets cannot contain them, but that they clog up Ludgate also,

in such sort that both they endanger the one the other, break down

stalls, throw down men's goods from their shops, and the inhabitants

there cannot come to their houses, nor bring in their necessary

provisions of beer, wood, coal, or hay, nor the tradesmen or

shopkeepers utter their wares, nor the passenger go to the common

water stairs without danger of their lives and limbs." "These

inconveniences" were said to last "every day in the winter time from

one or two of the clock till six at night."[367]

[Footnote 367: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 91.]

As a result of this petition the London Common Council ordered,

January 21, 1619, that "the said playhouses be suppressed, and that

the players shall from thenceforth forbear and desist from playing in

that house."[368] But the players had at Court many influential

friends, and these apparently came to their rescue. The order of the

Common Council was not put into effect; and so far as we know the only

result of this agitation was that King James on March 27 issued to his

actors a new patent specifically giving them--described as his

"well-beloved servants"--the right henceforth to play unmolested in

Blackfriars. The new clause in the patent runs: "as well within their

two their now usual houses called the Globe, within our County of

Surrey, and their private house situate in the precinct of the

Blackfriars, within our city of London."[369] At the accession of King

Charles I, the patent was renewed, June 24, 1625, with the same clause

regarding the use of Blackfriars.[370]

[Footnote 368: Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 311.]

[Footnote 369: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 281.]

[Footnote 370: _Ibid._, I, 282.]

In 1631, however, the agitation was renewed, this time in the form of

a petition from the churchwardens and constables of the precinct of

Blackfriars to William Laud, then Bishop of London. The document gives

such eloquent testimony to the popularity of the playhouse that I have

inserted it below in full:

To the Right Honorable and Right Reverend Father in God,

William, Lord Bishop of London, one of His Majesty's

Honorable Privy Council. The humble petition of the

churchwardens and constables of Blackfriars, on the behalf

of the whole Parish, showing that by reason of a playhouse,

exceedingly frequented, in the precinct of the said

Blackfriars, the inhabitants there suffer many grievances

upon the inconveniences hereunto annexed, and many other.

May it therefore please your Lordship to take the said

grievances into your honorable consideration for the

redressing thereof. And for the reviving the order, which

hath been heretofore made by the Lords of the Council, and

the Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen, for the removal of

them. And they shall, according to their duties, ever pray

for your Lordship.

Reasons and Inconveniences Inducing the Inhabitants of

Blackfriars, London, to Become Humble Suitors to Your

Lordship for Removing the Playhouse in the Said Blackfriars:

1. The shopkeepers in divers places suffer much, being

hindered by the great recourse to the plays (especially of

coaches) from selling their commodities, and having their

wares many times broken and beaten off their stalls.

2. The recourse of coaches is many times so great that the

inhabitants cannot in an afternoon take in any provision of

beer, coals, wood, or hay, the streets being known to be so

exceeding straight and narrow.

3. The passage through Ludgate to the water [i.e., Water

Lane] is many times stopped up, people in their ordinary

going much endangered, quarrels and bloodshed many times

occasioned, and many disorderly people towards night

gathered thither, under pretense of attending and waiting

for those at the plays.

4. If there should happen any misfortune of fire, there is

not likely any present order could possibly be taken, for

the disorder and number of the coaches, since there could be

no speedy passage made for quenching the fire, to the

endangering of the parish and city.

5. Christenings and burials, which usually are in the

afternoon, are many times disturbed, and persons endangered

in that part, which is the greatest part of the parish.

6. Persons of honor and quality that dwell in the parish are

restrained by the number of coaches from going out, or

coming home in seasonable time, to the prejudice of their

occasions. And some persons of honor have left, and others

have refused houses for this very inconvenience, to the

prejudice and loss of the parish.

7. The Lords of the Council in former times have by order

directed that there shall be but two playhouses tolerated,

and those _without the city_, the one at the Bankside, the

other near Golding Lane (which these players still have and

use all summer), which the Lords did signify by their

letters to the Lord Mayor; and in performance thereof the

Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen did give order that

they should forbear to play any longer there, which the

players promised to the Lord Chief Justice of the Common

Pleas (while he was Recorder of London) to observe,

entreating only a little time to provide themselves

elsewhere.[371]

[Footnote 371: Collier, _History of English Dramatic Poetry_ (1879),

I, 455.]

Bishop Laud endorsed the petition with his own hand "To the Coun.

Table," and in all probability he submitted it to the consideration of

the Privy Council. If so, the Council took no action.

But in 1633, as a result of further complaints about the crowding of

coaches, the Privy Council appointed a committee to estimate the value

of the Blackfriars Theatre and "the buildings thereunto belonging,"

with the idea of removing the playhouse and paying the owners

therefor. The committee reported that "the players demanded L21,000.

The commissioners [Sir Henry Spiller, Sir William Beecher, and

Laurence Whitaker] valued it at near L3000. The Parishioners offered

towards the removing of them L100."[372] Obviously the plan of removal

was not feasible, if indeed the Privy Council seriously contemplated

such action. The only result of this second agitation was the

issuance on November 20 of special instructions to coachmen: "If any

persons, men or women, of what condition soever, repair to the

aforesaid playhouse in coach, as soon as they are gone out of their

coaches, the coachmen shall depart thence and not return till the end

of the play."[373] Garrard, in a letter to the Lord Deputy dated

January 9, 1633, says: "Here hath been an order of the Lords of the

Council hung up in a table near Paul's and the Blackfriars to command

all that resort to the playhouse there to send away their coaches, and

to disperse abroad in Paul's Churchyard, Carter Lane, the Conduit in

Fleet Street, and other places, and not to return to fetch their

company, but they must trot afoot to find their coaches. 'Twas kept

very strictly for two or three weeks, but now I think it is disordered

again."[374] The truth is that certain distinguished patrons of the

theatre did not care "to trot afoot to find their coaches," and so

made complaint at Court. As a result it was ordered, at a sitting of

the Council, December 29, 1633 (the King being present): "Upon

information this day given to the Board of the discommodity that

diverse persons of great quality, especially Ladies and Gentlewomen,

did receive in going to the playhouse of Blackfriars by reason that no

coaches may stand ... the Board ... think fit to explain the said

order in such manner that as many coaches as may stand within the

Blackfriars Gate may enter and stay there."[375]

[Footnote 372: The _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1633_, p. 293.

The report of the commissioners in full, as printed by Collier in _New

Facts_ (1835), p. 27, and again in _History of English Dramatic

Poetry_ (1879), I, 477, is not above suspicion, although Mr. E.K.

Chambers is inclined to think it genuine. According to this document

the actors estimated the property to be worth L21,990, but the

committee thought that the actors might be persuaded to accept L2900

13_s._ 4_d._]

[Footnote 373: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 99; 387.]

[Footnote 374: _The Earl of Strafforde's Letters_ (Dublin, 1740), I,

175.]

[Footnote 375: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 388.]

All this agitation about coaches implies a fashionable and wealthy

patronage of the Blackfriars. An interesting glimpse of high society

at the theatre is given in a letter written by Garrard, January 25,

1636: "A little pique happened betwixt the Duke of Lenox and the Lord

Chamberlain about a box at a new play in the Blackfriars, of which the

Duke had got the key, which, if it had come to be debated betwixt

them, as it was once intended, some heat or perhaps other

inconvenience might have happened."[376] The Queen herself also

sometimes went thither. Herbert records, without any comment, her

presence there on the 13 of May, 1634.[377] It has been generally

assumed that she attended a regular afternoon performance; but this, I

am sure, was not the case. The Queen engaged the entire building for

the private entertainment of herself and her specially invited guests,

and the performance was at night. In a bill presented by the King's

Men for plays acted before the members of the royal family during the

year 1636 occurs the entry: "The 5th of May, at the Blackfryers, for

the Queene and the Prince Elector ... _Alfonso_." Again, in a similar

bill for the year 1638 (see the bill on page 404) is the entry: "At

the Blackfryers, the 23 of Aprill, for the Queene ... _The

Unfortunate Lovers_." The fact that the actors did not record the loss

of their "day" at their house, and made their charge accordingly,

shows that the plays were given at night and did not interfere with

the usual afternoon performances before the public.

[Footnote 376: _The Earl of Strafforde's Letters_ (Dublin, 1740), I,

511.]

[Footnote 377: The Herbert MS., Malone, _Variorum_, III, 167.]

The King's Men continued to occupy the Blackfriars as their winter

home until the closing of the theatres in 1642. Thereafter the

building must have stood empty for a number of years. In 1653 Sir

Aston Cokaine, in a poem prefixed to Richard Brome's _Plays_, looked

forward prophetically to the happy day when

Black, and White Friars too, shall flourish again.

But the prophecy was not to be fulfilled; for although Whitefriars

(i.e., Salisbury Court) did flourish as a Restoration playhouse, the

more famous Blackfriars had ceased to exist before acting was allowed

again. The manuscript note in the Phillipps copy of Stow's _Annals_

(1631) informs us that "the Blackfriars players' playhouse in

Blackfriars, London, which had stood many years, was pulled down to

the ground on Monday the 6 day of August, 1655, and tenements built in

the room."[378]

[Footnote 378: See _The Academy_, 1882, XXII, 314. Exactly the same

fate had overtaken the Globe ten years earlier.]