SALISBURY COURT
The Salisbury Court Playhouse[621] was projected and built by two men
whose very names are unfamiliar to most students of the drama--Richard
Gunnell and William Blagrove. Yet Gunnell was a distinguished actor,
and was associated with the ownership and management of at least two
theatres. Even so early as 1613 his reputation as a player was
sufficient to warrant his inclusion as a full sharer in the
Palsgrave's Company, then acting at the Fortune. When the Fortune was
rebuilt after its destruction by fire in 1621, he purchased one of the
twelve shares in the new building, and rose to be manager of the
company.[622] In addition to managing the company he also, as we learn
from the Herbert Manuscript, supplied the actors with plays. In 1623
he composed _The Hungarian Lion_, obviously a comedy, and in the
following year _The Way to Content all Women, or How a Man May Please
his Wife_.[623] Of William Blagrove I can learn little more than that
he was Deputy to the Master of the Revels. In this capacity he signed
the license for Glapthorne's _Lady Mother_, October 15, 1635; and his
name appears several times in the Herbert Manuscript in connection
with the payments of various companies.[624] Possibly he was related
to Thomas Blagrove who during the reign of Elizabeth was an important
member of the Revels Office, and who for a time served as Master of
the Revels.
[Footnote 621: The playhouse discussed in this chapter was officially
known as "The Salisbury Court Playhouse," and it should always be
referred to by that name. Unfortunately, owing to its situation near
the district of Whitefriars, it was sometimes loosely, though
incorrectly, called "Whitefriars." Since it had no relation whatever
to the theatre formerly in the Manor-House of Whitefriars, a
perpetuation of this false nomenclature is highly undesirable.]
[Footnote 622: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 66.]
[Footnote 623: Chalmers's _Supplemental Apology_, pp. 216-17. He may
also have been the author of a play called _The Masque_, which Herbert
in 1624 licensed: "For the Palsgrave's Company, a new play called _The
Masque_." In the list of manuscript plays collected by Warburton we
find the title _A Mask_, and the authorship ascribed to R. Govell.
Since "R. Govell" is not otherwise heard of, we may reasonably suppose
that this was Warburton's reading of "R. Gunell." Gunnell also
prefixed a poem to the Works of Captain John Smith, 1626.]
[Footnote 624: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 66, 122, 176, 177.]
What threw these two men together in a theatrical partnership we do
not know. But in the summer of 1629 they decided to build a private
playhouse to compete with the successful Blackfriars and Cockpit; and
for this purpose they leased from the Earl of Dorset a plot of ground
situated to the east of the precinct of Whitefriars. The ground thus
leased opened on Salisbury Court; hence the name, "The Salisbury Court
Playhouse." In the words of the legal document, the Earl of Dorset "in
consideration that Richard Gunnell and William Blagrove should at
their costs and charges erect a playhouse and other buildings at the
lower end of Salisbury Court, in the parish of St. Bridges, in the
ward of Farringdon Without, did demise to the said Gunnell and
Blagrove a piece of ground at the same lower end of Salisbury Court,
containing one hundred and forty foot in length and forty-two in
breadth ... for forty-one years and a half." The lease was signed on
July 6, 1629. Nine days later, on July 15, the Earl of Dorset, "in
consideration of nine hundred and fifty pounds paid to the said late
Earl by John Herne, of Lincoln's Inn, Esquire, did demise to hire the
said piece of ground and [the] building [i.e., the playhouse]
thereupon to be erected, and the rent reserved upon the said lease
made to Gunnell and Blagrove." Herne's lease was for a term of
sixty-one years. The effect of this second lease was merely to make
Herne, instead of the Earl of Dorset, the landlord of the players.
[Illustration: A PLAN OF THE SALISBURY COURT PROPERTY
To illustrate the lease. (Drawn by the author.)]
The plot of ground selected for the playhouse is described with
exactness in the lease printed below. The letters inserted in brackets
refer to the accompanying diagram (see page 371):
All that soil and ground whereupon the Barn {A}, at the
lower end of the great back court, or yard of Salisbury
Court, now stands; and so much of the soil whereupon the
whole south end of the great stable in the said court or
yard stands, or contains, from that end of that stable
towards the north end thereof sixteen foot of assize, and
the whole breadth of the said stable {B}; and all the ground
and soil on the east and west side of that stable lying
directly against the said sixteen foot of ground at the
south end thereof between the wall of the great garden
belonging to the mansion called Dorset House and the wall
that severs the said Court from the lane called Water Lane
{C and D}; and all the ground and soil being between the
said walls on the east and west part thereof, and the said
barn, stable, and ground on both side the same on the south
and north parts thereof {E}. Which said several parcells of
soil and ground ... contain, in the whole length ... one
hundred and forty foot of assize, and in breadth ... forty
and two foot of assize, and lies together at the lower end
of the said Court.
This plot, one hundred and forty feet in length by forty-two in
breadth, was small for its purpose, and the playhouse must have
covered all the breadth and most of the length of the leased
ground;[625] there was no actual need of leaving any part of the plot
vacant, for the theatre adjoined the Court, and "free ingress, egress,
and regress" to the building were stipulated in the lease "by,
through, and on any part of the Court called Salisbury Court."
[Footnote 625: The Blackfriars auditorium was sixty-six feet in length
and forty-six feet in breadth.]
At once Gunnell and Blagrove set about the erection of their
playhouse. They may have utilized in some way the "great barn" which
occupied most of their property; one of the legal documents printed by
Cunningham contains the phrase: "and the great barn, which was
afterwards the playhouse."[626] If this be true--I think it very
doubtful--the reconstruction must have been thorough, for Howes, in
his continuation of Stow's _Annals_ (1631), speaks of Salisbury Court
as "a new, fair playhouse";[627] and in all respects it seems to have
ranked with the best.
[Footnote 626: Cunningham, _The Shakespeare Society's Papers_, IV,
104. In his _Handbook for London_ Cunningham says that the Salisbury
Court Playhouse "was originally the 'barn.'"]
[Footnote 627: _Annals_ (1631), p. 1004. In 1633 Prynne
(_Histriomastix_) refers to it as a "new theatre erected."]
We know very little of the building. But Wright, in his _Historia
Histrionica_, informs us that it was "almost exactly like" the two
other private houses, the Blackfriars and the Cockpit:
_True._ The Blackfriars, Cockpit, and Salisbury Court were
called private houses, and were very small to what we see
now. The Cockpit was standing since the Restoration, and
Rhodes' company acted there for some time.
_Love._ I have seen that.
_True._ Then you have seen the other two in effect, for they
were all three built almost exactly alike for form and
bigness.[628]
[Footnote 628: Collier, _The History of English Dramatic Literature_
(1879), III, 106, thought that Salisbury Court was a round playhouse,
basing his opinion on a line in Sharpe's _Noble Stranger_ acted at
"the private house in Salisbury Court": "Thy Stranger to the
Globe-like theatre."]
In spite of what Wright says, however, there is some reason for
believing that Salisbury Court was smaller than the other two private
houses. The Epilogue to _Totenham Court_ refers to it as "my little
house"; and the Epistle affixed to the second edition of _Sir Giles
Goosecappe_ is said to convey the same impression of smallness.[629]
[Footnote 629: I have not been able to examine this. In the only copy
of the second edition accessible to me the Epistle is missing.]
According to Malone, Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, was
"one of the proprietors" of the house, and held a "ninth share" in the
profits.[630] This, however, is not strictly accurate. Sir Henry, by
virtue of his power to license playhouses, demanded from each
organization of players an annual fee. The King's Men gave him two
benefit performances a year; Christopher Beeston, on behalf of the
Cockpit in Drury Lane, paid him L60 a year; as for the rest, Herbert
tells us that he had "a share paid by the Fortune Players, and a share
by the Bull Players, and a share by the Salisbury Court Players."[631]
It seems, therefore, that the Salisbury Court organization was divided
into eight shares, and that of the profits an extra, or ninth, share
was set aside as a fee for the Master of the Revels.
[Footnote 630: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 178.]
[Footnote 631: Halliwell-Phillipps, _A Collection of Ancient
Documents_, p. 27.]
The playhouse was ready for use in all probability in the autumn of
1629; and to occupy it a new company of actors was organized, known as
"The King's Revels." The chief members of this company were George
Stutville, John Young, William Cartwright, William Wilbraham, and
Christopher Goad; Gunnell and Blagrove probably acted as managers. In
the books of the Lord Chamberlain we find a warrant for the payment of
L30 to William Blagrove "and the rest of his company" for three plays
acted by the Children of the Revels, at Whitehall, 1631.[632] The
Children continued at Salisbury Court until about December, 1631, when
they abandoned the playhouse in favor of the much larger Fortune,
surrendered by the Palsgrave's Men.
[Footnote 632: See Mrs. Stopes's extracts from the Lord Chamberlain's
books, in the Shakespeare _Jahrbuch_ (1910), XLVI, 97. This entry
probably led Cunningham to say (_The Shakespeare Society's Papers_,
IV, 92) that Blagrove was "Master of the Children of the Revels in the
reign of Charles I."]
The Palsgrave's Men, who for many years had occupied the Fortune, seem
to have fallen on bad times and to have disbanded. They were
reorganized, however, possibly by their old manager, Richard Gunnell,
and established in Salisbury Court. The Earl of Dorset, who took a
special interest in Salisbury Court, obtained for the troupe a patent
to play under the name of the infant Prince Charles, then little more
than a year old.[633] The patent bears the date of December 7, 1631;
and "The Servants of the High and Mighty Prince Charles" opened at
Salisbury Court very soon after[634] with a play by Marmion entitled
_Holland's Leaguer_. The Prologue refers to the going of the King's
Revels to the Fortune, and the coming of the new troupe to Salisbury
Court:
Gentle spectators, that with graceful eye
Come to behold the Muses' colony
New planted in this soil, forsook of late
By the inhabitants, since made _Fortunate_.
[Footnote 633: For Dorset's interest in the matter see Cunningham,
_The Shakespeare Society's Papers_, IV, 96.]
[Footnote 634: In December, 1631; see Malone, _Variorum_, III, 178.]
The Prologue closes thus:
That on our branches now new poets sing;
And when with joy he shall see this resort
Phoebus shall not disdain to styl't his _Court_.
But the audiences at Salisbury Court were not large. For six
performances of the play, says Malone, Sir Henry Herbert received
"but one pound nineteen shillings, in virtue of the ninth share which
he possessed as one of the proprietors of the house."[635]
[Footnote 635: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 178.]
Of the "new poets" referred to by the Prologue, one, of course, was
Marmion himself. Another, I venture to say, was James Shirley, who, as
I think, had been engaged to write the company's second play. This was
_The Changes_, brought out at Salisbury Court on January 10. The
Prologue is full of allusions to the company, its recent misfortunes,
and its present attempt to establish itself in its new quarters:
That Muse, whose song within another sphere[636]
Hath pleased some, and of the best, whose ear
Is able to distinguish strains that are
Clear and Phoebean from the popular
And sinful dregs of the adulterate brain,
By me salutes your candour once again;
And begs this noble favour, that this place,
And weak performances, may not disgrace
His fresh Thalia.[637] 'Las, our poet knows
We have no name; a torrent overflows
Our little island;[638] miserable we
Do every day play our own Tragedy.
But 't is more noble to create than kill,
He says; and if but with his flame, your will
Would join, we may obtain some warmth, and prove
Next them that now do surfeit with your love.
Encourage our beginning. Nothing grew
Famous at first. And, gentlemen, if you
Smile on this barren mountain, soon it will
Become both fruitful and the Muses hill.
[Footnote 636: The Cockpit, for which Shirley had been writing.]
[Footnote 637: Cf. "new poets" of Marmion's Prologue.]
[Footnote 638: An allusion to the smallness of the Salisbury Court
Playhouse?]
The similarity of this to the Prologue of _Holland's Leaguer_ is
striking; and the Epilogue is written in the same vein:
Opinion
Comes hither but on crutches yet; the sun
Hath lent no beam to warm us. If this play
Proceed more fortunate, we shall bless the day
And love that brought you hither. 'T is in you
To make a little sprig of laurel grow,
And spread into a grove.
All scholars who have written on the subject--Collier, Fleay, Greg,
Murray, etc.--have contended that the King's Revels Company did not
leave Salisbury Court until after January 10, 1632, because Herbert
licensed Shirley's _The Changes_ on that date,[639] and the title-page
of the only edition of _The Changes_ states that it was acted at
Salisbury Court by His Majesty's Revels. But Herbert records payments
for six representations of Marmion's _Leaguer_ by Prince Charles's Men
at Salisbury Court "in December, 1631."[640] This latter date must be
correct, for on January 26 _Holland's Leaguer_ was entered on the
Stationers' Register "as it hath been lately and often acted with
great applause ... at the private house in Salisbury Court."
According to the generally accepted theory, however, the King's Men
were still at Salisbury Court, and actually bringing out a new play
there so late as January 10. This error has led to much confusion, and
to no little difficulty for historians of the stage; for example, Mr.
Murray is forced to suppose that two royal patents were granted to
Prince Charles's Company.[641] It seems to me likely that the
title-page of _The Changes_ is incorrect in stating that the play was
acted by the King's Revels. The play must have been acted by the new
and as yet unpopular Prince Charles's Men, who had occupied Salisbury
Court as early as December, and, as Herbert tells us, with poor
success. The various dates cited clearly indicate this; and the
Prologue and the Epilogue are both wholly unsuited for utterance by
the successful Revels Company which had just been "made Fortunate,"
but are quite in keeping with the condition of the newly organized and
struggling Prince Charles's Men, who might naturally ask the public to
"encourage our beginning."
[Footnote 639: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 232. But Malone was a careless
transcriber, and Herbert himself sometimes made errors. Possibly the
correct date is January 10, 1631.]
[Footnote 640: _Ibid._, III, 178.]
[Footnote 641: _English Dramatic Companies_, I, 221.]
Whether Prince Charles's Men ultimately succeeded in winning the favor
of the public we do not know. Presumably they did, for at some date
before 1635 they moved to the large Red Bull Playhouse. Richard Heton
wrote: "And whereas my Lord of Dorset had gotten for a former company
at Salisbury Court the Prince's service, they, being left at liberty,
took their opportunity of another house, and left the house in
Salisbury Court destitute both of a service and company."[642]
[Footnote 642: Richard Heton, "Instructions for my Pattent," _The
Shakespeare Society's Papers_, IV, 96.]
This person, Richard Heton, who describes himself as "one of the
Sewers of Her Majesty's Chamber Extraordinary," had now obtained
control of Salisbury Court, and had become manager of its
affairs.[643] He apparently induced the Company of His Majesty's
Revels to leave the Fortune and return to Salisbury Court, for in 1635
they acted there Richard Brome's _The Sparagus Garden_. But their
career at Salisbury Court was short; on May 12 of the following year
all playhouses were closed by the plague, and acting was not allowed
again for nearly a year and a half. During this long period of
inactivity, the Company of His Majesty's Revels was largely dispersed.
[Footnote 643: We find a payment to Richard Heton, "for himself and
the rest of the company of the players at Salisbury Court," for
performing a play before his Majesty at Court, October, 1635.
(Chalmers's _Apology_, p. 509.) Exactly when he took charge of
Salisbury Court I am unable to learn.]
When at last, on October 2, 1637, the playhouses were allowed to open,
Heton found himself with a crippled troupe of actors. Again the Earl
of Dorset interested himself in the theatre. Queen Henrietta's
Company, which had been at the Cockpit since 1625, having "disperst
themselves," Dorset took "care to make up a new company for the
Queen";[644] and he placed this new company under Heton at Salisbury
Court. Heton writes: "How much I have done for the upbuilding of this
Company, I gave you some particulars of in a petition to my Lord of
Dorset." This reorganization of the Queen's Men explains, perhaps, the
puzzling entry in Herbert's Office-Book, October 2, 1637: "I disposed
of Perkins, Sumner, Sherlock, and Turner, to Salisbury Court, and
joyned them with the best of that company."[645] Doubtless Herbert,
like Dorset, was anxious for the Queen to have a good troupe of
players. This new organization of the Queen's Men continued at
Salisbury Court without interruption, it seems, until the closing of
the playhouses in 1642.[646]
[Footnote 644: Cunningham, _The Shakespeare Society's Papers_, IV,
96.]
[Footnote 645: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 240.]
[Footnote 646: For certain troubles at Salisbury Court in 1644 and
1648, see Collier, _The History of English Dramatic Poetry_ (1879),
II, 37, 40, 47.]
In 1649 John Herne, son of the John Herne who in 1629 had secured a
lease on the property for sixty-one years, made out a deed of sale of
the playhouse to William Beeston,[647] for the sum of L600. But the
document was not signed. The reason for this is probably revealed in
the following passage: "The playhouse in Salisbury Court, in Fleet
Street, was pulled down[648] by a company of soldiers set on by the
sectaries of these sad times, on Saturday, the 24 day of March,
1649."[649]
[Footnote 647: William Beeston was the son of the famous actor
Christopher Beeston, who was once a member of the Lord Chamberlain's
Men, later manager of the Fortune, and finally proprietor of the
Cockpit. In 1639 William had been appointed manager of the Cockpit
Company. (See pages 358 ff.)]
[Footnote 648: That is, stripped of its benches, stage-hangings, and
other appliances for dramatic performances.]
[Footnote 649: The manuscript entry in Stow's _Annals_. See _The
Academy_, October 28, 1882, p. 314. On the same date the soldiers
"pulled down on the inside" also the Phoenix and the Fortune.]
Three years later, however, Beeston, through his agent Theophilus
Bird, secured the property from Herne at the reduced price of L408:
"John Herne, by indenture dated the five and twentieth day of May,
1652, for L408, to him paid by Theophilus Bird, did assign the
premises and all his estate therein in trust for the said William
Beeston."[650]
[Footnote 650: Cunningham, _The Shakespeare Society's Papers_, IV,
103.]
Early in 1660 Beeston, anticipating the return of King Charles, and
the reestablishment of the drama, decided to put his building back
into condition to serve as a playhouse; and he secured from Herbert,
the Master of the Revels, a license to do so.[651] On April 5, 1660,
he contracted with two carpenters, Fisher and Silver, "for the
rebuilding the premises"; and to secure them he mortgaged the
property. The carpenters later swore that they "expended in the same
work L329 9_s._ 4_d._"[652]
[Footnote 651: Printed in Malone, _Variorum_, III, 243, and
Halliwell-Phillipps, _A Collection of Ancient Documents_, p. 85. The
language clearly indicates that Beeston was to _reconvert_ the
building into a theatre.]
[Footnote 652: Cunningham, _The Shakespeare Society's Papers_, IV,
103.]
The reconstructed playhouse was opened in 1660, probably as early as
June, with a performance of _The Rump_, by Tatham. It was engaged by
Sir William Davenant for his company of actors until his "new theatre
with scenes" could be erected in Lincoln's Inn Fields.[653] The
ubiquitous Pepys often went thither, and in his _Diary_ gives us some
interesting accounts of the performances he saw there. On March 2,
1661, he witnessed a revival of Thomas Heywood's _Love's Mistress, or
The Queen's Masque_ before a large audience:
After dinner I went to the Theatre [i.e., Killigrew's
playhouse] where I found so few people (which is strange,
and the reason I did not know) that I went out again; and so
to Salisbury Court, where the house as full as could be; and
it seems it was a new play, _The Queen's Masque_, wherein
are some good humours: among others a good jeer to the old
story of the Siege of Troy, making it to be a common country
tale. But above all it was strange to see so little a boy as
that was to act Cupid, which is one of the greatest parts in
it.
[Footnote 653: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 257; Halliwell-Phillipps, _A
Collection of Ancient Documents_, p. 27.]
Again, on March 26, he found Salisbury Court crowded:
After dinner Mrs. Pierce and her husband, and I and my wife,
to Salisbury Court, where coming late, he and she light of
Col. Boone, that made room for them; and I and my wife sat
in the pit, and there met with Mr. Lewes and Tom Whitton,
and saw _The_ _Bondman_[654] done to admiration.
[Footnote 654: By Philip Massinger.]
The history of the playhouse during these years falls outside the
scope of this volume. Suffice it to say that before Beeston finished
paying the carpenters for their work of reconstruction, the great fire
of 1666 swept the building out of existence; as Fisher and Silver
declared: "The mortgaged premises by the late dreadful fire in London
were totally burned down and consumed."[655]
[Footnote 655: The subsequent history of Salisbury Court is traced in
the legal documents printed by Cunningham. Beeston lost the property,
and Fisher and Silver erected nearer the river a handsome new
playhouse, known as "The Duke's Theatre," at an estimated cost of
L1000.]