Wylson and others, servants to our trustie and well-beloved Cousin and
Councillor, the Earl of Leicester, to use, exercise and occupie the
art and facultie of playing Comedies, Tragedies, Interludes, Stage
Plaies, and such other, like as they have already used and studied or
hereafter shall use and study, as well as for the recreacion of our
loving subjects as for our solace and pleasure when we shall think
good to see them ... together with their musick ... as well within
our City of London and the Liberties of the same, as also within the
liberties and freedoms of any other cytyes, towns, boroughes, &c.,
whatsoever, throughout our realm of England; willing and commanding
you and every of you, as ye tender our pleasure, to permit and suffer
them therein without any your letts, hindrance or molestation,
any act, statute, proclamation or commandment heretofore made, or
hereafter to be made to the contrary notwithstanding. Provided that
the same ... be allowed by our Master of the Revells, and that they be
not published or shewen in the time of Common Prayer, or in the time
of great and common plague in our said City of London.
Nothing could have been more explicit, or more exasperating to the
Corporation of London, than this permission to contravene their
mandates.[52] The Corporation’s counterblast was the famous Order
of 6th December 1574. They threatened fine and imprisonment to any
who “played without a licence from the City each time,” and without
giving half the proceeds to the poor. They did not “tender the Queen’s
pleasure” in respect to the players.[53]
At the close of 1574, on St. Stephen’s Day, the Earl of Leicester’s
servants played before the Queen at Court, and opened the year by
playing on New Year’s Day, 1574-5.
Other noblemen hastened to request Royal Patents for their servants.
The battle between the Privy Council and the Common Council raged all
the more hotly since the players had been “patented,” and the climax
came when the Lord Mayor expelled all players from the City, under an
undated “Order for the relief of the Poor” printed by Singleton.
Leicester’s servants played before the Queen on Innocent’s Day 1575,
and again on the Sunday before Shrovetide. For the first time they
were fully described in the warrants for payment granted by the Privy
Council[54] and in the declared accounts of the Pipe Office[55] as
“Burbage and his company, servants to the Earl of Leicester.” But
even Leicester’s servants, with a Privy Seal Patent from the Queen,
could not very well live all the year round on Christmas gifts. They
must either go on tour, act in the City or near it, starve, or turn
to another trade. Burbage did return awhile to his original trade.
He had had a prevision of what was coming, had kept his eyes open,
and had laid his plans, and found a “place where to stand.” A few
months after the expulsion order, on 13th April 1576, he had signed
and sealed an indenture of lease for a parcel of land of the disused
monastery of Holywell, stretching from the barn and outhouses of
the property of the Earl of Rutland to the brick wall that bounded
Finsbury Fields. It belonged to Giles Alleyn, Arm., and his wife Sara,
and contained a barn, some old tenements, gardens, fields, and some
“voyd ground.” His plans necessitated engineering and financial skill,
credit, and money. James Burbage had the first, but he was not rich.
He had married, however, some time previous to this, Ellen Braynes,
who had “expectations.” Halliwell-Phillips and all his followers
say she was the _daughter_ of John Braynes. But he is in error; the
language of some of the cases he knew might have taught him better.
But a case which he evidently did not know states clearly that John
Braynes was the only brother of Ellen Burbage. He was evidently, at
the time, a childless husband, as in his lawsuits there is constant
reference to the understanding that his sister’s children would
inherit all he had, seeing he had none of his own. There was an inn
upon Burbage’s leasehold, but players had been forbidden to play in
inn-yards. He could not risk playing on his “voyd ground,” as his
audience might melt away before they paid the costs, so he resolved to
build a _playing-house_ in his fields. John Braynes, fired with the
idea of making a speedy fortune, agreed to become a sharer in costs
and profits, and each signed a bond to the other. Giles Alleyn signed
the lease, knowing quite well it was to be for the players, but he did
not mind much, as he himself was going henceforth to live in Essex.
He also knew that Burbage was the “servant” of the Earl of Leicester,
and it was not safe to disoblige that great noble, even through his
servants. Alleyn was used to land-transfers and litigation, and he
thought he made a safe bargain. He did not want to give a longer lease
than twenty-one years until he saw how playing-houses were likely to
do, but he permitted a clause that if, before the end of the first
ten years, James Burbage had spent £200 in repairing or rebuilding
the old tenements on the property, he could have another lease from
that date of twenty-one years (making in all thirty-one years), and
he could, at the end, carry away the materials of any building he
had erected for himself.[56] Burbage was to pay the legal expenses
of drawing up and the engrossing of this second lease. Of course,
there was some preliminary “consideration,” but the rent seemed very
moderate even for the time, for the extent of land leased at £14 by
the year including the tenements inhabited by sub-tenants. Burbage,
with Braynes’ help, set to work at once. It is probable he was his
own architect, contractor, and master-builder, that he even used his
own hands in the work, and pressed those of his “unemployed” company
to hasten forward the edifice which promised so soon to help them in
return. Wood does not necessitate so many difficulties or delays as
stone and brick. It can be fetched from the country prepared, and even
partially put together, as can be learned from one of Peter Street’s
lawsuits.[57] As the building rose, it became its own advertisement.
Finsbury Field was the City-ground for drill and archery, the people’s
play-ground. From its boundary crowds watched the rising fabric, eager
and impatient as the owners, and more curious. We may be quite sure
that Burbage’s building was the main topic of London gossip during
1576. When, protected by walls, doors, and doorkeepers from impecunious
prying eyes, it did open on some unrecorded day that year, of course
there were disturbances. Everybody wanted to enter the charmed circle
at once, to see the plays from which they had been so long debarred,
and to understand Burbage’s little game. The humour of the situation
tickled the fancy of the people; the taste of the forbidden tree was
sweet to their palate; cutpurses saw their chance among the genuine
play-lovers, and there was crowding, crushing, struggling for entry,
quarrelling for places, shouting, and all signs of a brawl. Free fights
ensued, and “The Theatre,” from the very first, through no fault of its
owner, became associated with breaches of the peace, which its enemies
made the most of. In the following year it came into history by name.
On 1st August 1577 the Privy Council, moved by the City, for fear of
the plague, wrote to the Middlesex authorities to take order with “such
as use to play without the Liberties ... as at the Theatre and such
like,” to forbear playing till after Michaelmas.[58] A sermon preached
at Paul’s Cross in the time of the plague, 3rd November 1577, by T.
W. (printed 1578) refers to “the sumptuous Theatre houses, a constant
monument of London’s prodigalitie and folly.”[59] John Northbrook’s
“Book against dicing, vaine playes, or enterludes,” entered in
Stationers’ Hall, 2nd December 1577, refers to “the Theatre and the
Curtain.” The Earl of Leicester’s players however played at Court
that Christmas, but again on 17th April 1578 the Privy Council wrote
the Middlesex authorities to restrain players till after Michaelmas.
John Stockwood, Schoolmaster of Tunbridge, preached a sermon at Paul’s
Cross on 24th August of that year, in which the Theatre and Curtain
are both referred to by name, and again he refers to “the gorgeous
Playing place erected in the fields, as they please to have it called,
a Theatre.”[60] On 24th December 1578 the Earl of Leicester’s servants
had a licence to play in the City, because they were going to play
before the Queen at Christmas. They played on St. Stephen’s Day, but on
Shrove Tuesday they were paid in full for coming, though the play, by
her Majesty’s command, was supplied by others.[61] This was probably
the sign of a tiff with Leicester.
Burbage’s promptness, sumptuousness, and success could not be attained
without lavish outlay of money, more than he had himself or that his
brother-in-law could command. Apparently he found it through John
Hyde, grocer, though no record of the transaction has been preserved
otherwise than the fact that Hyde held the house in pawn from 17th
September 1579 till 7th June 1589, during which time Burbage remained
legal and ostensible owner. At the latter date it was restored, but to
Cuthbert, not to James Burbage. Against the dangers of debt and public
interference he still bravely fought, but even in “The Liberty of
Holywell” troubles assailed him. Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson, in editing the
Middlesex County Records for James I, found among them a few entries of
Elizabeth’s reign, and among these is the record of the presentation at
Clerkenwell Sessions of John Braynes of Shoreditch yeoman, and James
Burbage of the same, yeoman, 21st February 22 Eliz.,[62] on the charge
of
“bringing together unlawful assemblies to hear and to see certain
colloquies or interludes called playes or interludes exercised and
practised by the same John Braynes and James Burbage, and divers other
persons unknown at a certain place called The Theatre at Holywell in
the county of Middlesex, by reason of which great affrays, assaults,
tumults and quasi-insurrections and divers other misdeeds and
enormities ... perpetrated to the danger of the lives of divers good
subjects ... against the form of the Statute,” etc.
This shows that Braynes, though not mentioned in the original patent,
had become one of Burbage’s players. But it hardly supports Mr.
Jeaffreson’s contention that he must have been the _chief_ player and
proprietor of The Theatre. Braynes might very well have been placed
first as being the elder, and apparently the richer, of the two, and
they might have agreed to put Braynes forward as the chief, so as to
bear the brunt of the examination, while Burbage was looking after his
plays, his house, his rehearsals, and his audience. Braynes was a
business man, quite able to face an attorney and a magistrate, but he
was second fiddle at The Theatre.
It is curious to remember that the great earthquake took place about
six weeks later, 6th April 1580. Enemies read in it a token of God’s
wrath against The Theatre. Ballads were written to bid men haste away
from the play because of the earthquake.[63] But we have no record of
any damage at The Theatre, or to Burbage’s house in Holywell Street,
though many chimneys fell in more respectable places.[64]
The Lord Mayor wrote to the Lords of the Council,[65] “Where it
happened on Sunday last that some great disorder was committed at
the Theatre, I sent for the Undersherive ... and for the players to
have appeared before me, the rather because these playes doe make
assemblies of citizens and of their families of whom I have charge,”
but hearing the Council was considering the matter he “surceased to
proceed,” but thought it his duty to remind them “that the players of
playes which are used at the Theatre, and other such places ... are a
very superfluous sort of men, and of suche facultie as the lawes have
disalowed.” An order of the Privy Council was issued to forbid all
plays in and about the City till Michaelmas next, 13th May 1580. Five
months’ forced “unemployment,” with his rent, his interest running on,
his creditors clamouring, his housekeeper asking for food, and his
company doubtless worrying him for money. His was the fate of Tantalus,
for the golden stream was ever at his lips. The constant interference
with the players only increased the eagerness of the populace to see
them. Battles with courtiers, preachers, citizens, authors, raged
round Burbage’s head. But he played at Court that Christmas as usual.
In 1583 the Queen, to keep up with her nobles, resolved to patent a
Royal Company of her own, and exercising her prerogative of “taking
up,” not only singing boys, but any[66] “men” she needed for her
service, she took the pick of the players from all the companies, among
them Robert Wilson and Richard Tarleton. This did not really hurt them
much, as they remained on friendly terms, and often played with their
old companies. The Queen’s players had their first performances at
Court, with but few others, during the Christmas of 1583-4.
In 1584 Fleetwood wrote to Lord Burleigh that the Lord Mayor desired
to suppress all playhouses, and had sent for the players themselves
to come to him, among them the Queen’s players and Lord Arundel’s
players. “They all well nighe obeyed the Lordes letters: the chiefest
of her Higheness’s players advised me to send for the owner of The
Theatre, who was a stubborne fellow, and to bind him: I did so. He
sent me word that he was my Lord of Hunsdon’s man, and that he would
not comme at me, but he would in the morning ride to his Lord. I sent
the Under-Sheriff for him but he would not be bound.”[67] This has
been supposed not to refer to Burbage, because he said he was Lord
Hunsdon’s man. But there was no one else who could be called _owner_
of The Theatre, no one so resourceful and so daring. He was any Lord’s
man, so that it was not the Lord Mayor’s, and, seeing what the Earl
of Leicester was about, he was off to Court, to ask his Lord what his
Royal Patent meant when a mere Lord Mayor could flout it so. After that
his Company became Lord Hunsdon’s (then the Lord Chamberlain) till the
Queen’s death. That danger passed.
Before April 1586 Burbage had the proposed new lease of his property
drawn up to add ten years after the expiration of the first lease, but
Giles Allen refused to sign it. He denied that the £200, as agreed, had
really been spent on the repair of the old tenements; he said there
were alterations from the old lease, though Burbage explained that
the difference only lay in not including a clause and condition for
further extension of lease. Alleyn showed a shifty desire to juggle
with the 1576 agreement, and, having an exaggerated idea of the net
profits realized by Burbage, he wanted to raise the rent from £14 to
£24; and while granting the ten years’ extra lease of the soil, he
wanted to restrict the further use of The Theatre as a playing place
to a term of _five_ more years, after which it might be used for _some
other purpose_ by Burbage. It was clear that Burbage was not going to
sign a lease at the raised rent without having the use of his theatre
during the full term, so the two second leases lay in abeyance, and
landlord and tenant spent the remaining eleven years of the first lease
suspicious of each other, and watching every turn of events.
In 1586 a new set of troubles arose through the death of John Braynes,
who, apparently by the influence of his wife Margaret and the pressure
of circumstances, had not remained quite as brotherly as he had
formerly been. Through fear of being called on to pay theatre debts,
he had made a deed of gift of his goods and chattels to Robert Myles,
goldsmith, to one Tomson, and also to John Gardiner. Margaret Braynes,
widow, had herself a suit against Robert Myles, and in Easter 1587,[68]
“a week is granted him to make answer, or an attachment will be
granted.” By this time John Gardiner had died, and his administrator,
Robert Gardiner, claimed to be executor of Braynes in his place. The
widow, Myles, and Gardiner united to worry Burbage. They refused to
consider the notion that Braynes meant his investment in building The
Theatre to come eventually to his nephews, or that through his breach
of agreement he had forfeited his bond, and they made themselves very
harassing.
Halliwell-Phillipps, and all the writers who follow him, say the
first action was taken in the Chancery suit of Braynes _v._ Burbage,
1590. But it began long before that. He had never seen the earlier
suit of Burbage _v._ Braynes,[69] nor followed its various stages
through Chancery. I am not able to give the exact date of this first
action, as the document is very much injured, but I _believe_ it is
1588. The plaintiffs are James Burbage, Ellen his wife, and Cuthbert,
Richard, Alice, and Ellen their children _v._ Margaret Braynes. This
explains how James had taken the land from Giles Alleyn, and how his
brother-in-law had agreed to go shares with him in The Theatre and the
George Inn. There had been an arbitration between them which had been
in favour of Burbage, on 12th July 1578, and Braynes had forfeited a
bond of £200 through not obeying the arbitration. Braynes had conveyed
his goods and chattels to Myles, to Tomson, and to John Gardiner, and
had ceased to pay his share of expenses. But shortly before his death
he confessed that his moietie should all remain to Burbage’s children.
The defendants claimed the same, only under an old will made before
the conveyances and against the arbitration. Robert Myles “enters
The Theatre and troubles your orator, and his tenants,” and Robert
Gardiner, the administrator of John Gardiner, who died in 1587, “goes
about to sue James Burbage in two several bonds,” and “by reason of
the multiplicity of their conveyances they joyn together to imprison
your said orator, to enforce him to yield to their request.” They will
not pay the £200 bond forfeited by Braynes; their action is costly,
and leads to his impoverishment. He prays relief, and a subpœna to the
defendants to appear personally and answer material facts, and he is
willing to submit to justice. Their answer is, of course, that his is
an untrue and insufficient bill. I suppose this is the case referred
to in the Decree[70] that the defendants have put in an insufficient
demurrer. It was referred to Mr. Dr. Carew, and if he thought it
insufficient, a subpœna to be awarded against the defendants. Margaret
Braynes, Myles, and Gardiner had meanwhile brought a cross-suit against
the Burbages; and in that, on 21st May 1590,[71] the court was informed
that the defendants put in an insufficient demurrer, and it also is
referred to Mr. Dr. Carew for the same purpose. This came up again
in the Trinity term,[72] and on 4th November Mrs. Braynes appeals
again, through Mr. Scott,[73] for the moietie of The Theatre and other
tenements; the defendants have put in an ill demurrer, and take the
whole gains and benefits of the premises, albeit she and her husband
had been at very great charges in the building of The Theatre, to
the sum of £500, and did for a time enjoy the moietie. It is ordered
that if the defendants do not show good cause, sequestration of the
moietie shall be granted. On 13th November[74] Mr. Serjeant Harrys, for
Burbage, prayed consideration of a former order made in his behalf in
the suit of Burbage _v._ Braynes. There had been an arbitrament made
on 12th July 1578, in favour of Burbage, and neither of the parties
showed why the arbitration should not be performed. Sequestration was
stayed. This promised peace; but on 20th January 1590-1[75] Robert
Myles made oath that the Burbages had broken an order made in court
on 13th November; therefore an attachment was awarded for contempt.
On 30th January[76] Cuthbert Burbage made his personal appearance to
save his bond to the Sheriff of London, but nothing was done. On 23rd
March[77] it was stated in court that the Burbages had been examined
upon interrogatories, and these committed to the consideration of Mr.
Dr. Cæsar. On 24th April 1591,[78] Burbage continued his case against
Mrs. Braynes, she having put in an insufficient demurrer; consideration
was referred to Mr. Dr. Carew. On 15th June,[79] as nothing material
had been advanced on her side, Burbage asked for a subpœna against her
and Myles. On 20th July[80] Margaret Braynes appeared in her own case
against Cuthbert and James Burbage; they also appeared, but the Master
in Charge could not attend. On 12th October 1591[81] it was decided
that no advantage should be given until it was found whether Burbage
had committed contempt of court; and on 13th November[82] it was heard
again. It had been referred to Mr. Dr. Stanhop and Mr. Dr. Legg, who
had heard counsel on both sides, but they could not well proceed to
examine the parties before they examined John Hyde of London, grocer,
Ralph Myles of London, “sopemaker,” Nicholas Bushop and John Allen upon
the contempt pretended. The need of considering these witnesses arose
in this way. Burbage, at some date, following his brother-in-law’s
lead, had transferred all his property to his sons. Hyde, holding The
Theatre for ten years, had released it to Cuthbert. To Robert Myles had
been let the George Inn, part of the Holywell property; Myles had let
the stables to his son, Ralph Myles, and Nicholas Bushop[83] for a soap
manufactory.[84]
One is interested to know the inns at which Shakespeare might have
“taken his ease.” Here is one, on the very Theatre ground. Was it in
his thought when he wrote, in “King John,”
St. George, who swinged the Dragon, and ere since
Sits on his horseback at mine hostess’ door.
For by this time Burbage had got firm hold of Shakespeare. He was
learning all round, _even law_ through the troubles of Burbage,
helping all round, becoming a “Johannes Factotum ... a Shakescene
able to bumbast out a blank verse as well as the best of you!” Was
there a little bit of lively badinage of James Burbage when, in the
play suggesting the Earl of Leicester and his Kenilworth festivities,
“Midsummer Night’s Dream,” he cast, in the artisan’s play “Snug the
_Joiner_,” for the Lion’s part?