again. Latterly Margaret Braynes died, but Robert Myles continued
_versus_ Burbage and Burbage _versus_ Myles. The next best thing for
him to a speedy settlement in his favour was delay. Time told for
him. On 4th February 1595-6 James Burbage, “gent.,” purchased from
Sir William More for £600 some rooms in the dissolved Monastery of
Blackfriars,[85] also out of the jurisdiction of the City authorities.
Throughout that year he urged on the alterations of the rooms into a
winter theatre, that his brilliant son Richard might not be hindered in
his performances by further troubles at The Theatre. By 16th November
the inhabitants of the Blackfriars had sent up a petition against the
starting of a playhouse there; a copy, undated, is preserved among
the State papers.[86] But the date can be found in a later petition
and order at the Guildhall, which implies that the first had been
successful, at least for a time.[87] James Burbage, therefore, though
the inventor and designer of the modern theatre in stone and brick as
well as in wood, in the famous theatre afterwards called the private
stage of Blackfriars, did not see his son Richard triumph there.
Baffled in that, he “laboured with Giles Alleyn to sign the extended
lease of Holywell drawn up in 1586, and got his friends also to move
him.” Probably among these were the Earls of Southampton and Rutland,
whose property bordered his ground.[88] Giles Alleyn was, however,
unresponsive. Amid the anxious discussions with his sons concerning
their critical future, I feel sure that James planned the manœuvre,
which afterwards proved really successful. He thought that if he could
but carry that out as he wished, he would be able to fight all his
enemies at once, and give his beloved Theatre a new lease of life. But
he was not so young as he had been, the strain of his strenuous work
had told upon him, and sorrow for losses by death. Just a year after he
had bought his Blackfriars property and just before the lease of his
Theatre had run, the lease of his life ended; he died suddenly, and was
buried in St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, 2nd February, 1596-7.
O! Brave James Burbage!
_“Fortnightly Review,” July 1909._
FOOTNOTES:
[51] 14 Eliz., c. 5.
[52] Lansdowne MS., XX, 10, 11, 12, 13.
[53] _Ibid._, IX, 18.
[54] Privy Council Register, 14th March 1575.
[55] Pipe Office. Dec. Acc. Treas. Chamb., No. 541.
[56] Court of Requests, Burbage _v._ Alleyn, 26th January 42 Eliz.
87/74.
[57] Court of Requests, 20th January 39 Eliz. 91/57.
[58] Privy Council Register of Date.
[59] See Harrison’s “England” (ed. Furnivall), vol. iv, p. 343.
[60] _Ibid._, p. 329.
[61] Pipe Office. Dec. Acc. Treas. Chamb., No. 541, f. 210.
[62] Middlesex County Records, vol. ii, xlvii.
[63]
“Come from the Plaie,
The House will fall so people saye
The Earth quakes lett us haste awaye.”
[64] Stow’s “Chronicles,” p. 686.
[65] 12th April 1580. See “Athenæum,” 12th February 1887.
[66] Rymer’s “Fœdera,” xl, 375.
[67] Lansdowne MS., 41, art. 13.
[68] As the Books begin in Michaelmas, they always seem a year too
soon. Ch. Proc. D. and O., 1586-7, Braynes _v._ Myles, A. Book, 6th May
1587, 384.
[69] Chancery Proceedings, Series II, 222/85.
[70] Ch. Proc. D. and O. (A. Book, 454, 1588, 22nd February 1588-9.)
[71] _Ibid._, 1589, A. Book, 21st May 1590, 610.
[72] A. Book, 1590, 15.
[73] A. Book, 4th November 1590, 109.
[74] A. Book, 13th November 1590, 145.
[75] A. Book, 23rd January 1590-1, 270.
[76] A. Book, 30th January 1590-1, 317.
[77] A. Book, 23rd March 1590-1, 456.
[78] A. Book, 24th April 1591, 493.
[79] A. Book, 15th June 1591, 720.
[80] A. Book, 20th July 1591, 818.
[81] Decrees and Orders, A. Book, 12th October 1591, 16.
[82] A. Book, 13th November 1591, 151.
[83] Myles _v._ Bushop, Chan. Proc., 2nd Series, 245, 85.
[84] In the Nebraska University Studies, 1913, Professor Wallace states
that _he told me_ of all these papers. He mistakes, or forgets. I had
been engaged in this work for fifteen years before he came to the
country, had them all, and was only checking them for type when one
was being repaired at this date. The Uncalendared MSS. of the Court of
Requests were not previously opened to students.
[85] See Manuscripts at Loseley, and the Appendix to 7th Rep. Roy. Com.
Hist. Man., 653b.
[86] Dom. Ser. St. Pap. Eliz., cclx, 116.
[87] Repertory, 34a, 38b, 21st January 1618.
[88] Exchequer Bills and Answers, Eliz. 369. Many interesting details
are of necessity crowded out, through lack of space.
XVIII
THE TRANSPORTATION OF BURBAGE’S “THEATRE”
The story of the dramatic transportation of “The Theatre” from the
north to the south bank of the Thames is well known to every student of
Shakespeare’s life. But Halliwell-Phillipps, who did so much to bring
forward new facts concerning it, rarely gives his references, and,
among the mass of material which must have passed through his hands, he
neglected sufficiently to compare and collate different papers. Hence
he did not complete the story of “The Theatre.”
James Burbage had died in February 1597, just before the conclusion
of the twenty-one years’ lease granted by Giles Alleyn, who had been
juggling with his promise to lengthen it by ten years, on the plea that
the conditions had not been fulfilled. Burbage’s sons were already in
possession (see my paper “Burbage’s Theatre,” “Fortnightly Review,”
July 1909). Richard Burbage entered into negotiations with Henry Evans
about a lease of the newly altered theatre at Blackfriars. The Privy
Council, on 28th July 1597, had issued an order that the Theatre and
the Curtain should be pulled down, or at least dismantled, so as to
make them unfit for stage-playing. It was a hard saying, for it meant
that all the money, energy, and ingenuity which had been put into the
realization of Burbage’s great idea would be dissipated _without any
compensation_, while imitations survived. Cuthbert Burbage, evidently
hoping that he would find friends at Court to help him to weather
the storm, as he had done before, renewed his entreaties to Alleyn to
extend the lease. Alleyn temporized, but allowed him to continue on
the old terms for the time. Probably he had no better offer on hand.
The Lord Chamberlain’s company went on tour in the summer, when all
companies were forbidden to act in the City until Allhallows-tide; but
they were engaged to play at Court at Christmas as usual. The year 1598
was critical for them; it is uncertain whether they played at their own
“Theatre” or not. Guilpin’s “Skialethia,” published that year, says:
But see yonder one
Who, like the unfrequented Theater,
Walkes in dark silence and vast solitude.
Shakespeare’s friend, the Earl of Southampton, had lost favour with the
Queen through his marriage with Elizabeth Vernon. On the other hand,
Shakespeare himself had been glorified by Francis Meres, Professor of
Rhetoric in Oxford; and Richard Burbage had been generally recognized
as the greatest genius on the stage. Hesitation ended when Cuthbert
Burbage heard privately that his ground landlord meant to pull down his
“Theatre,” ostensibly in obedience to the order of the Privy Council,
but really that he might confiscate its materials to repay himself for
the mortifications and losses that he fancied he had unjustly endured.
Cuthbert looked at Southwark _over ye sea_, where already Henslowe had
prospered in the Rose, and Langley in the Swan, and, secretly finding a
site to the east of these, removed.
We are accustomed to think of the building as the permanent and fixed
item and the players as the transitory and passing element in a whole
theatre. But on this occasion the company, like the snail, in its
exodus from Middlesex, carried its house on its back. Two contemporary
descriptions of the event give different dates. The Star Chamber
proceedings, 44 Eliz., A. xii, 35, state that it was on 28th December
1598; the Coram Rege Roll, Trinity Term 42 Eliz., 587, says it was on
the 20th of January following. Possibly the wardrobe and the stuff,
the portable properties, and the play-books went on the first date to
safe storage; and the solid framework on the later date. But I think
authority is all in favour of the earlier date. It was a stiff piece
of work to take down and carry away the materials in a short time; it
would necessitate a little army of housebreakers and transplanters,
probably aided by the players themselves. They had more work to do than
they bargained for, as they met sturdy opposition from Giles Alleyn’s
men, who saw their expected job and pickings thus torn away from them.
It is likely that the night would be selected by the phase of the moon
and the time of the tide, for it cannot be supposed that Cuthbert would
be rash enough to carry his materials in a train of lumbering wagons
across London Bridge, paying wheelage and passage dues, under the
danger of being stopped to explain at any point. He would be certain
to ship them over the water. He was fortunate in the man he employed,
Peter Street, an “ordinary servant of the Queen’s Household.” I find,
from an earlier lawsuit (Court of Requests, 91/57, January 1597),
that Peter Street had a wharf of his own handy near Bridewell Stairs,
whence he probably wafted the lot in a little flotilla of boats and
barges, at high tide, to the wharf on Bankside, nearest his new site.
The night of 28th December 1598, or rather the following dawn, saw a
pile of unsightly wreckage lying on the southern bank of the Thames,
beyond Giles Alleyn’s control or the Lord Mayor’s jurisdiction. Peter
Street did his best; Burbage did his best; the shareholders were eager,
and moneylenders ready; and in a very short time a new “Theatre”
rose, like the phœnix, from the ashes of the old. Shakespeare by that
time knew what was in a name, and as the decree had gone out against
“The Theatre,” they changed its name. Was it because they knew “all
the world’s a stage” that they called it then “the Globe”? There
Shakespeare was free to create, and Burbage to interpret his creations.
Londoners on the other side had known of its exodus, and had watched
its rising, and again it was its own advertisement. The hopes of the
Thames watermen were radiant as it grew.
The litigation which had handicapped the Burbages had ceased with the
death of the two principals, Margaret Braynes and James Burbage. But
Cuthbert, even before he left Holywell, had been sucked again into the
vortex of the law. In Trinity Term 38 Eliz., 1596, while his father
was yet alive, Cuthbert had sued in the King’s Bench, Roger Ames,
John Powell, and Richard Robinson, because they had on 1st May 1596
trespassed _vi et armis_ on the inner close of Cuthbert Burbage at
Holywell, had destroyed grass to the value of 40_s._, and had kept the
close from the 1st of May till the 27th of June in their own custody,
the damage in all amounting to £20. One can read between the lines
that in May 1596 James Burbage would be away superintending hurried
building alterations in his newly purchased property at Blackfriars,
and the company would be on tour to earn their livelihood. The case did
not come on for hearing until Tuesday in the Octaves of Hilary, which
fell on or about this very removal day, 20th January 1598-9 (Coram
Rege Rolls, Hilary 41 Eliz., r. 320). No one has hitherto understood
the full bearing of this case, through lack of the light shed on it
by a later case (Exchequer Bills and Answers, No. 369, and Exchequer
Depositions, 44-45 Eliz., No. 18). Thence we find that Cuthbert
Burbage was really in this case acting on behalf of Giles Alleyn,
and in co-operation with him, against the three defendants. These,
Giles Alleyn said, had been put forward by the Earl of Rutland, the
neighbouring land-owner, or rather by command of his steward, Thomas
Scriven. They had ejected Cuthbert from the inner court, and inclosed
it with a mud wall. Cuthbert had brought an action against Ames and the
others for loss of profits; Thomas Scriven, without the knowledge of
the Earl, who was a minor and a royal ward, and “was beyond the seas,”
caused information to be sent to “the Court of Wards and Liveries”[89]
against Cuthbert Burbage and _Richard_ Allen, “misnaming him of purpose
that he might not answer.” There had been an injunction issued to
stay Burbage’s suit against Ames till the facts should be considered
in the Court of Wards. This continued for two years, when, the Earl
having come of age and sued his livery, the power of that court ceased,
Burbage went on with his suit, and Ames, Powell, and Robinson were
forced to plead. They denied force and injury, and demanded to be tried
by a jury. The real cause at issue was as to the ownership of “the
Capital Mansion House of the late dissolved Priory of St. John Baptist
in Holywell.” The Earl of Rutland claimed that his father had had a
lease of it from the Queen, with many years yet to run, and that “the
void ground” was part of the estate. Cuthbert Burbage had wrongfully
entered it, and the Earl’s undertenants had justly withstood him.
Giles Alleyn answered that it was true “the void ground” did belong
to the capital mansion house, but the capital mansion house did not
belong to the Earl. His was only a secondary house, which the Earl’s
father had enlarged. The real Capital Mansion House had been granted
by Henry VIII to Henry Webbe for £136. He settled it on his daughter
Susan when she married Sir George Peckham. They sold it to Christopher
Bumpstead, mercer, for £533 6_s._ 8_d._ in 1556, and in that same year
he sold it to Christopher and Giles Alleyn for £600. Giles held it
as the survivor, and drew his rents peaceably till 1st May 1596, when
Thomas Scriven commanded Ames to enter, and Cuthbert Burbage sued them
under Giles Alleyn’s title. Thomas Scriven had had the case repeatedly
postponed, to the great trouble and cost to Alleyn.
Cuthbert Burbage had therefore, during this critical time, shared
with his landlord the trouble and worry of this suit against “the
trespassers,” though apparently Giles Alleyn was responsible for the
costs.
In this very Hilary Term, January 1598-9, Cuthbert’s infuriated and
unexpectedly-outwitted landlord took the preliminary steps for bringing
a suit against him, or rather against his agent, Peter Street, in
the Court of the King’s Bench, also for trespass on the same ground!
A strange cross-suit indeed! He made his complaint in Easter Term,
41 Eliz. (see Coram Rege Roll, Trinity Term 42 Eliz., No. 587). This
is one of four suits, of which Halliwell-Phillips speaks, and quotes
largely from three. But as he did not study their relative dates, and
the bearing of the one upon the other, and as he had not _read_ the
fourth, the later Star Chamber case, he has missed the legal bearing
of them all, and is ignorant of the decisions in any of them. It is
very easy, and it becomes very interesting to collate them. In the
1602 Star Chamber case Alleyn says he began his suit against Burbage
in the Hilary Term following 28th December 1598; but that would be
about 20th January 1598-9, the second date given for the transportation
of “The Theatre,” and the time of the hearing of the case brought by
Burbage _and_ Alleyn versus Ames and others. I think he was in error,
because it is stated in Coram Rege Roll, 42 Eliz., 587, that Giles
Alleyn had commenced his suit against Peter Street in Easter Term,
1599, but it had been postponed. This was because Cuthbert Burbage
appealed to the Court of Requests, 42 Eliz., 87/74 to stay this
suit. Burbage in his complaint, dated 26th January 1599-1600, states
simply that Giles Alleyn and his wife, Sara, owners of certain garden
grounds and tenements near Holywell, in the parish of St. Leonard’s,
Shoreditch, on 13th April 1576, granted them to his father James for
good consideration, for a term of twenty-one years at £14 a year. The
condition was that if he had spent £200 on the repair of the tenements
(not the theatre) before the end of the first ten years, he could then
sue for a new lease at the same rent for a new term of twenty-one
years, making thirty-one years in all. He could, at the end of either
term, carry away any building he had put up for himself. James Burbage
was to pay the expenses of drawing up the second lease. All these
conditions James Burbage had faithfully performed. But Giles Alleyn
would not sign that lease when drawn up, substituting another, in
which the Burbages were to pay £10 more annual rent, and not use “The
Theatre,” _as a theatre_, for more than five years of the second term.
James Burbage would not sign such a lease, nor would Cuthbert; but the
latter had stayed on at the old rent, buoyed up by the hopes of having
_his_ new lease signed. It was only when he heard that Alleyn was about
to take away the Theatre that he did so himself, which he had a perfect
right to do. Alleyn was prosecuting his suit against Peter Street with
“rigour and extremity”; the heavy damages he claimed would injure him
much. Cuthbert prayed, therefore, that the suit in the King’s Bench
might be stayed, and Alleyn summoned to answer personally in this Court.
Giles Alleyn presented his voluminous “answer” on 6th February
1599-1600. He said, of course, that the complaint was untrue, and
“exhibited of malice.” He went through the original lease, with a few
glosses. He refused to sign the new lease because it was different
from the original one; also because James Burbage had not spent the
£200 in repairs, and there were arrears of rent. “He was a troublesome
tenant. When he had tried to distrain for rent, either the doors and
gates were kept shut, or there was nothing left to distraine.” He had
offered to give Cuthbert a new lease, with good security and increased
rent. He could well afford it, seeing he had made at least £2,000 by
the Theatre. He had heard it had been built at the charges of John
Braynes, whom James Burbage defrauded,[90] as Cuthbert now defrauded
Robert Myles, his executor. It was manifestly illegal for Burbage to
remove the Theatre.
Cuthbert’s “replication” is dated 27th April 1600. He said he could
prove everything in his complaint, and denied all Alleyn’s charges. If
his father delayed paying the rent, it was owing to the trouble and
expense he had had in keeping the property against Edward Peckham,
who disputed Alleyn’s right to it. He could bring the workmen’s bills
to show that his father had spent the £200 in repairs. He himself had
disbursed a large sum since. He had been quite willing to sign a fair
lease such as his father drew up. The sole difference from the first
lay in its containing no clause for the further extension of the lease.
A Royal Commission was issued on 5th June to examine witnesses on
interrogatories, the depositions to be returned by Michaelmas 1600. The
depositions on behalf of Giles Alleyn were taken at Kelvedon, Essex, on
14th August. They were not very convincing. The depositions on behalf
of Street and Burbage are not among the Calendared Proceedings of the
Court of Requests, or we might have had some interesting names as well
as facts. But they appear to have prevailed. No one seems to have found
the decisions in any of the cases. But I have found from the Star
Chamber case Alleyn’s statement, “_Thereby I lost my suit_.” This case,
therefore, is the only one of the four which came to a conclusion. The
5th of June 1600, on which Alleyn’s witnesses were being examined, is
in Trinity Term, and it was in this Trinity Term that Giles Alleyn sued
Peter Street in the postponed action in the King’s Bench, regardless
of the injunction from the Court of Requests, or the order that the
answers were to be returned at Michaelmas, It is from this King’s Bench
case (Coram Rege Roll, Trin. 42 Eliz. 587) that Halliwell-Phillipps
selected his lengthy extracts. But the vital points are missed. The
Court, “not being sufficiently informed of particulars,” postponed
the hearing till Michaelmas, and it was never heard. Why? Because on
18th October 42 Eliz., the Privy Council decreed, through the Court
of Requests, that Giles Alleyn and his attorneys should from thence
surcease, and no further prosecute the action at common law for
trespass, and should never commence any suit for the _pulling down of
the Theatre_, and that Cuthbert Burbage should be at liberty to take
his remedy at Common Law against Alleyn for not agreeing to seal the
second lease. (See “The demurrer of Cuthbert Burbage, Richard Burbage,
Peter Street, and William Smith to Giles Alleyn’s complaint” in the
Star Chamber case, 23rd November, 44 Eliz., 1601, A. xii/35.)
In Hilary Term 43 Eliz., 1601, postponed till Easter, 44 Eliz., Alleyn
sued a plea of broken agreement against Cuthbert Burbage in his own
name (Coram Rege Roll, 1373, r. 255, Easter 44 Eliz.).
Then Giles Alleyn, still at white heat, brought the noteworthy, though
hitherto unnoted, complaint in the Star Chamber, again defying legal
etiquette and legal decision, 23rd November 44 Eliz., 1601. He recited
the well-known indenture and conditions, and further blackened the
character of the Burbages by saying that Braynes, not Burbage, had
built the Theatre at the cost of 1,000 marks. (Mrs. Braynes herself
only claimed to have contributed £500 for their moiety; see D. and O.
Books, Chancery A., 1590, p. 109.) “Cuthbert, desiring to make gain,
allowed the theatre to remain after the expiry of the lease, when it
became clearly vested in the Landlord,” who, “seeing the grievous
abuses that came by the said Theatre, resolved to pull it downe”; but
Cuthbert carried it away “in and about 28th December, 1598.” Alleyn
claimed to have commenced an action in Hilary Term following (_i.e._
January 1599); but Cuthbert exhibited a bill to stay him in Easter.
We have proved both of his dates incorrect. Alleyn goes on to make an
extraordinary charge--that Burbage had combined with John Maddox, his
attorney, and Richard Lane, the Register of the Court of Requests, to
draw up a forged order that he should not make any demurrer. Being
ignorant of this, he drew up a demurrer and went home to Haseley,
thinking everything settled till the case should be heard. But Burbage
gave information that he had “broken order,” and he was, for supposed
contempt, in the vacation time following, fetched up to London by a
pursuivant, “to his great vexation and annoyance, a man very aged and
unfitt to travell, to his excessive charges in journey, and likewise to
his great discredit and disgrace among his neighbours in the country.”
The pursuivant brought him to a Master of the Court of Requests, and
bound him in a bond of £200 to Cuthbert to appear at Michaelmas, when
he was purged of contempt. Alleyn further said he had witnesses to
bring up, but Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, reviling them because they
had formerly testified untruths, threatened to stab them if they did
it again, so that the witnesses were terrified and could not testify
on his behalf. Meanwhile Burbage suborned his witnesses “to commit
grievous perjury” concerning the costs of James Burbage, “by which
unlawful practises your said subject _did then lose his case_.”
Further, in the suit between him and Peter Street, and between him and
Cuthbert Burbage, one William Smith laid out “divers sums of money on
their behalf, whereby arose forcible entries, abuse of justice, law,
and order, and examples of misdemeanour worthy of punishment.” Cuthbert
and Richard Burbage and the others denied all his charges, and denied
“the riott in pulling down the said playhouse called the Theatre.”
Cuthbert “in conscience, being the assignee, could justify it, although
not in strictness of common law, by Alleyn’s breach of covenant.”
Therefore he had sought relief in the Court of Requests, which on
18th October 1600, non-suited Alleyn, and forbade him ever again from
bringing another “action for pulling down _of The Theatre_.” Cuthbert
added that Alleyn “offers great scandal and abuse to your Majesty’s
Council by calling the same matter again in question, after such
judiciall sentence and decree passed against him.” On 12th June 1602,
Richard Lane, “who was then and is still acting as deputy Register
in the Court of Requests,” denied Alleyn’s charge against himself.
His whole procedure had been what he was accustomed to for the past
thirty years; he therefore denied the charge of forgery. On 17th June
Richard Hudson and Thomas Osborne denied the charge of perjury brought
by Alleyn against them. After these wholesale denials Giles Alleyn’s
bill of complaint and the demurrers were referred to the consideration
of “the right worshipful Mr. Francis Bacon, Esq.”; and he decided that
Giles Alleyn’s bill of complaint was very uncertain and insufficient
in law, and _no further answer need be made to it_. This means that it
was dismissed. This is my first discovery of any association between
Francis Bacon and the theatre, and even the Baconians must allow it was
a purely legal one, and not literary.
Alleyn defied legal etiquette and legal decision by continuing the
postponed suit against the same man in another court. This is the
case in the Queen’s Bench (Coram Rege Roll, Easter 44 Eliz. R. 257),
which is varied from the former one in that court by being brought
directly against Burbage, instead of his servant Peter Street. The
case gives the former recitals quoted by Halliwell-Phillipps, who
apparently did not understand that Burbage argued this time that Alleyn
was incompetent to bring the action. Giles Alleyn and Sara his wife
appealed to the country for a jury. This was never summoned, because,
Alleyn’s case being dismissed from the Star Chamber in Trinity, 44
Eliz., he was left by the previous decision of the Court of Requests
incompetent at law to bring the case at all.
I can only account for Giles Alleyn’s audacity in bringing such a case
again by the fact that since the Privy Council’s decision had occurred,
the Essex conspiracy, executions, imprisonments, and fines had occupied
the attention of the Privy Council, and weakened the strength of the
players’ friends at Court. Burbage’s company themselves had not escaped
without suspicion: Augustine Phillips had been summoned, though he had
proved his innocence, and the company performed at Court till the eve
of the executions.