[Footnote 82: Wallace, op. cit., p. 246.]

[Footnote 83: Ibid., p. 184.]

Cuthbert's anxiety in this matter is explained by the fact that the old lease gave him the right to tear down the Theatre and carry away the timber and other materials to his own use, provided he did so before the expiration of the twenty-one years. Yet, relying on Alleyn's promises to renew the lease, he "did forbear to pull downe and carry away the timber and stuff employed for the said Theatre and playing-house at the end of the said first term of one and twenty years." A failure to renew the lease would mean, of course, the loss of the building.

Alleyn, though deferring to sign a new lease, allowed Burbage to continue in possession of the property at "the old rent of L14." Yet the Theatre seems not to have been used for plays after the original lease expired.[84] The Lord Chamberlain's Company, which had been occupying the Theatre, and of which Richard Burbage was the chief actor, had moved to the Curtain; and the author of Skialetheia, printed in 1598, refers to the old playhouse as empty: "But see, yonder, one, like the unfrequented Theatre, walks in dark silence and vast solitude."[85]

[Footnote 84: The lease expired on April 13, 1597; on July 28 the Privy Council closed all playhouses until November. The references to the Theatre in The Remembrancia (see The Malone Society's Collections, I, 78) do not necessarily imply that the building was then actually used by the players.]

[Footnote 85: The same fact is revealed in the author's remark, "If my dispose persuade me to a play, I'le to the Rose or Curtain," for at this time only the Chamberlain's Men and the Admiral's Men were allowed to play.]

To Cuthbert Burbage such a state of affairs was intolerable, and on September 29, 1598, he made a new appeal to Alleyn. Alleyn proffered a lease already drawn up, but Cuthbert would not "accept thereof" because of the "very unreasonable covenants therein contained."[86]

[Footnote 86: Wallace, op. cit., pp. 216, 249.]

Shortly after this fruitless interview, or late in 1598, Gyles Alleyn resolved to take advantage of the fact that Cuthbert Burbage had not removed the Theatre before the expiration of the first twenty-one years. He contended that since Cuthbert had "suffered the same there to continue till the expiration of the said term ... the right and interest of the said Theatre was both in law and conscience absolutely vested" now in himself; accordingly he planned "to pull down the same, and to convert the wood and timber thereof to some better use for the benefit" of himself.[87]

[Footnote 87: Ibid., pp. 277, 288.]

But, unfortunately for Alleyn, Cuthbert Burbage "got intelligence" of this purpose, and at once set himself to the task of saving his property. He and his brother Richard, the great actor, took into their confidence the chief members of the Lord Chamberlain's Company, then performing at the Curtain Playhouse, namely William Shakespeare, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, and William Kempe. These men agreed to form with the Burbages a syndicate to finance the erection of a new playhouse. The two Burbages agreed to bear one-half the expense, including the timber and other materials of the old Theatre, and the five actors promised to supply the other half. Together they leased a suitable plot of land on the Bankside near Henslowe's Rose, the lease dating from December 25, 1598. These details having been arranged, it remained only for the Burbages to save their building from the covetousness of Alleyn.

On the night of December 28, 1598,[88] Alleyn being absent in the country, Cuthbert Burbage, his brother Richard, his friend William Smith, "of Waltham Cross, in the County of Hartford, gentleman," Peter Street, "cheefe carpenter," and twelve others described as "laborers such as wrought for wages," gathered at the Theatre and began to tear down the building. We learn that the widow of James Burbage "was there, and did see the doing thereof, and liked well of it";[89] and we may suspect that at some time during the day Shakespeare and the other actors were present as interested spectators.

[Footnote 88: The date, January 20, 1599, seems to be an error.]

[Footnote 89: Wallace, op. cit., p. 238.]

The episode is thus vividly described by the indignant Gyles Allen:

The said Cuthbert Burbage, having intelligence of your subject's purpose herein, and unlawfully combining and confederating himself with the said Richard Burbage and one Peter Street, William Smith, and diverse other persons to the number of twelve, to your subject unknown, did about the eight and twentieth day of December, in the one and fortieth year of your highness reign, and sithence your highness last and general pardon, by the confederacy aforesaid, riotously assembled themselves together, and then and there armed themselves with diverse and many unlawful and offensive weapons, as namely swords, daggers, bills, axes, and such like, and so armed did then repair unto the said Theatre, and then and there armed as aforesaid, in very riotous, outrageous, and forceable manner, and contrary to the laws of your highness realm, attempted to pull down the said Theatre. Whereupon, diverse of your subjects, servants and farmers, then going about in peaceable manner to procure them to desist from that unlawful enterprise, they, the said riotous persons aforesaid, notwithstanding procured then therein with great violence, not only then and there forcibly and riotously resisting your subjects, servants, and farmers, but also then and there pulling, breaking, and throwing down the said Theatre in very outrageous, violent, and riotous sort.[90]

[Footnote 90: Wallace, op. cit., pp. 278-79. This document was discovered by J.O. Halliwell-Phillipps, who printed extracts in his Outlines. See also Ordish, Early London Theatres, pp. 75-76.]

The workmen, under the expert direction of Peter Street, carried the timber and other materials of the old Theatre to the tract of land on the Bankside recently leased by the new syndicate—as Gyles Alleyn puts it, "did then also in most forcible and riotous manner take and carry away from thence all the wood and timber thereof unto the Bankside, in the Parish of St. Mary Overies, and there erected a new playhouse with the said timber and wood."

The playhouse thus erected was, of course, an entirely new structure. Nearly a quarter of a century had elapsed since James Burbage designed the old Theatre, during which time a great development had taken place both in histrionic art and in play writing; and, no doubt, many improvements were possible in the stage and in the auditorium to provide better facilities for the actors and greater comfort for the spectators. In designing such improvements the architect had the advice and help of the actors, including Shakespeare; and he succeeded in producing a playhouse that was a model of excellence. The name selected by the syndicate for their new building was "The Globe." For further details as to its construction, and for its subsequent history, the reader is referred to the chapter dealing with that building.

When Gyles Alleyn learned that the Burbages had demolished the Theatre and removed the timber to the Bankside, he was deeply incensed, not only at the loss of the building, but also, no doubt, at being completely outwitted. At once he instituted suit against Cuthbert Burbage; but he was so intemperate in his language and so reckless in his charges that he weakened his case. The suit dragged for a few years, was in part referred to Francis Bacon, and finally in the summer of 1601 was dismissed. Thus the history of the first London playhouse, which is chiefly the history of quarrels and litigation, came to a close.

It is not possible now to indicate exactly the stay of the different troupes at the Theatre; the evidence is scattered and incomplete, and the inferences to be drawn are often uncertain.

When the building was opened in 1576, it was, no doubt, occupied by the Earl of Leicester's troupe, of which Burbage was the manager, and for which, presumably, the structure had been designed. Yet other troupes of players may also have been allowed to use the building—when Leicester's Men were touring the provinces, or, possibly, on days when Leicester's Men did not act. This arrangement lasted about six years.

In 1582 the use of the Theatre was interrupted by the interference of Peckham. For a long time the actors "could not enjoy the premises," and Burbage was forced to keep Peckham's servants out of the building with an armed guard night and day. As a result of this state of affairs, Leicester's troupe was dissolved; "many of the players," we are told, were driven away, and the rest "forsook the said Theatre." The last notice of these famous players is a record of their performance at Court on February 10, 1583.

Shortly after this, in March, 1583, Tilney, the Master of the Revels, organized under royal patronage a new company called the Queen's Men. For this purpose he selected twelve of the best actors of the realm, including some of the members of Leicester's company.[91] The two best-known actors in the new organization were the Queen's favorite comedian, Richard Tarleton, the immortal "Lord of Mirth," and John Lanham, the leader and apparently the manager of the troupe. James Burbage, who may by this time, if not before, have retired from acting, was not included.

[Footnote 91: For a list of the Queen's Men see Wallace, op. cit., p. 11.]

The newly organized Queen's Men in all probability occupied the Theatre which had been left vacant by the dissolution of Leicester's company. Mr. Wallace denies this, mainly on the evidence of a permit issued by the Lord Mayor, November 28, 1583, granting the Queen's Men the privilege of acting "at the sign of the Bull [Inn] in Bishopgate Street, and the sign of the Bell [Inn] in Gracious Street, and nowhere else within this city." But this permit, I think, lends scant support to Mr. Wallace's contention. The Lord Mayor had no authority to issue a license for the Queen's Men to play at the Theatre, for that structure was outside the jurisdiction of the city. The Privy Council itself, no doubt, had issued such a general license when the company was organized under royal patronage.[92] And now, ten months later, on November 26, 1583, the Council sends to the Lord Mayor a request "that Her Majesty's players may be suffered to play ... within the city and liberties between this and shrovetide next"[93]—in other words, during the winter season when access to the Theatre was difficult. It was customary for troupes to seek permission to act within the city during the winter months.[94] Thus the Queen's Men, in a petition written probably in the autumn of the following year, 1584, requested the Privy Council to dispatch "favorable letters unto the Lord Mayor of London to permit us to exercise within the city," and the Lord Mayor refused, with the significant remark that "if in winter ... the foulness of season do hinder the passage into the fields to play, the remedy is ill conceived to bring them into London."[95] Obviously the Queen's Men were seeking permission to play in the city only during the cold winter months; during the balmy spring, summer, and autumn months—for actors the best season of the year—they occupied their commodious playhouse in "the fields."

[Footnote 92: Such a license would include also permission to act in the provinces. This latter was soon needed, for shortly after their organization the Queen's Men were driven by the plague to tour the provinces. They were in Cambridge on July 9, and probably returned to London shortly after. See Murray, English Dramatic Companies, I, 8.]

[Footnote 93: The Malone Society's Collections, I, 66.]

[Footnote 94: Lord Hunsdon, on October 8, 1594, requested the Lord Mayor to permit the Chamberlain's Men "to play this winter time within the city at the Cross Keys in Gracious Street." See The Malone Society's Collections, I, 67.]

[Footnote 95: The Malone Society's Collections, I, 170, 172.]

That this playhouse for a time, at least, was the Theatre is indicated by several bits of evidence. Thus the author of Martin's Month's Mind (1589) speaks of "twittle-twattles that I had learned in ale-houses and at the Theatre of Lanham and his fellows." Again, Nash, in Pierce Penniless (1592), writes: "Tarleton at the Theatre made jests of him"; Harrington, in The Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596): "Which word was after admitted into the Theatre with great applause, by the mouth of Master Tarleton"; and the author of Tarlton's Newes out of Purgatory (c. 1589) represents Tarleton as connected with the Theatre. Now, unless Lanham, Tarleton, and their "fellows" usually or sometimes acted at the Theatre, it is hard to understand these and other similar passages.

The following episode tends to prove the same thing. On June 18, 1584, William Fleetwood, Recorder, wrote to Lord Burghley:[96]

Right honorable and my very good lord. Upon Whitsunday there was a very good sermon preached at the new churchyard near Bethelem, whereat my Lord Mayor was with his brethren; and by reason no plays were the same day, all the city was quiet. Upon Monday I was at the Court.... That night I returned to London and found all the wards full of watchers; the cause thereof was for that very near the Theatre or Curtain, at the time of the plays, there lay a prentice sleeping upon the grass; and one Challes, at Grostock, did turn upon the toe upon the belly of the same prentice. Whereupon the apprentice start up.

[Footnote 96: The letter is printed in full in The Malone Society's Collections, I, 164.]

In the altercation that followed, Challes remarked that "prentices were but the scum of the world." This led to a general rising of apprentices, and much disorder throughout the city. Fleetwood records the upshot thus:

Upon Sunday my Lord [Mayor] sent two aldermen to the court for the suppressing and pulling down of the Theatre and Curtain. All the Lords [of the Privy Council] agreed thereunto saving my Lord Chamberlain and Mr. Vice-Chamberlain. But we obtained a letter to suppress them all. Upon the same night I sent for the Queen's Players [at the Theatre?] and my Lord Arundel's Players [at the Curtain?] and they all willingly obeyed the Lords's letters. The chiefest of Her Highness's Players advised me to send for the owner of the Theatre [James Burbage[97]], who was a stubborn fellow, and to bind him. I did so. He sent me word he was my Lord of Hundson's man, and that he would not come at me; but he would in the morning ride to my lord.

[Footnote 97: This could not have been Hide, as usually stated. Hide had nothing to do with the management of the Theatre, and was not "my Lord of Hunsdon's man." Hide's connection with the Theatre as sketched in this chapter shows the absurdity of such an interpretation of the document.]

The natural inference from all this is that the Queen's Men and Lord Arundel's Men were then playing outside the city where they could be controlled only by "the Lords's Letters"; that the Queen's Men were occupying the Theatre, and that James Burbage was (as we know) not a member of that company, but merely stood to them in the relation of "owner of the Theatre."

What Burbage meant by calling himself "my Lord of Hunsdon's man" is not clear. Mr. Wallace contends that when Leicester's Men were dissolved, Burbage organized "around the remnants of Leicester's Company" a troupe under the patronage of Lord Hunsdon, and that this troupe, and not the Queen's Men, occupied the Theatre thereafter.[98] But we hear of Hunsdon's Men at Ludlow in July, 1582; and we find them presenting a play at Court on December 27, 1582. Since Leicester's troupe is recorded as acting at Court as late as February 10, 1583, it seems unlikely that Mr. Wallace's theory as to the origin of Hunsdon's Men is true. It may be, however, that after the dissolution of Leicester's Men, Burbage associated himself with Hunsdon's Men, and it may be that he allowed that relatively unimportant company to occupy the Theatre for a short time. Hunsdon's Men seem to have been mainly a traveling troupe; Mr. Murray states that notices of them "occur frequently in the provinces," but we hear almost nothing of them in London. Indeed, at the time of the trouble described by Fleetwood, Hunsdon's Men were in Bath.[99] If Burbage was a member of the troupe, he certainly did not accompany them on their extended tours; and when they played in London, if they used the Theatre, they must have used it jointly with the Queen's Men.

[Footnote 98: Wallace, op. cit., p. 11.]

[Footnote 99: Murray, English Dramatic Companies, I, 321.]

Late in 1585 the Theatre was affiliated with the adjacent Curtain. Burbage and Brayne made an agreement with the proprietor of that playhouse whereby the Curtain might be used "as an easore" [easer?] to the Theatre, and "the profits of the said two playhouses might for seven years space be in divident between them." This agreement, we know, was carried out, but whether it led to an exchange of companies, or what effect it had upon the players, we cannot say. Possibly to this period of joint management may be assigned the witticism of Dick Tarleton recorded as having been uttered "at the Curtain" where the Queen's Men were then playing.[100] It may even be that as one result of the affiliation of the two houses the Queen's Men were transferred to the Curtain.

[Footnote 100: Tarlton's Jests, ed. by J.O. Halliwell, p. 16. Tarleton died in 1588.]

In 1590, as we learn from the deposition of John Alleyn, the Theatre was being used by the Admiral's Men.[101] This excellent company had been formed early in 1589 by the separation of certain leading players from Worcester's Men, and it had probably occupied the Theatre since its organization. Its star actor, Edward Alleyn, was then at the height of his powers, and was producing with great success Marlowe's splendid plays. We may suppose that the following passage refers to the performance of the Admiral's Men at the Theatre:

He had a head of hair like one of my devils in Dr. Faustus, when the old Theatre crackt and frightened the audience.[102]

[Footnote 101: Wallace, op. cit., pp. 101, 126.]

[Footnote 102: The Black Booke, 1604.]

Late in 1590 the Admiral's Men seem to have been on bad terms with Burbage,[103] and when John Alleyn made his deposition, February 6, 1592, they had certainly left the Theatre. Mr. Greg, from entirely different evidence, has concluded that they were dispersed in 1591,[104] and this conclusion is borne out by the legal document cited above.

[Footnote 103: Wallace, op. cit., p. 101.]

[Footnote 104: Greg, Henslowe's Diary, II, 83. The Admiral's Men were reorganized in 1594, and occupied the Rose under Henslowe's management.]

The next company that we can definitely associate with the Theatre was the famous Lord Chamberlain's Men. On April 16, 1594, Lord Strange, the Earl of Derby, died, and the chief members of his troupe—William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, John Heminges, William Kempe, Thomas Pope, George Bryan, and Augustine Phillips—organized a new company under the patronage of the Lord Chamberlain. For ten days, in June, 1594, they acted at Newington Butts under the management of Philip Henslowe, then went, probably at once, to the Theatre, which they made their home until the Burbage lease of the property expired in the spring of 1597. Here, among other famous plays, they produced the original Hamlet, thus referred to by Lodge in Wit's Miserie, 1596:

He looks as pale as the visard of the ghost which cries so miserably at the Theatre, like an oyster-wife, "Hamlet, revenge!"

And here, too, they presented all of Shakespeare's early masterpieces.

Their connection with the building ceased in 1597 at the expiration of the Burbage lease; but their association with the proprietors of the Theatre was permanent. Their subsequent history, as also the history of the Burbage brothers, will be found in the chapters dealing with the Globe and the Second Blackfriars.[105]

[Footnote 105: For other but unimportant references to the Theatre see The Malone Society's Collections, vol. I: disorder at, October, 1577, p. 153; disorder at, on Sunday, April, 1580, p. 46; fencing allowed at, July, 1582, p. 57; fencing forbidden at, May, 1583, p. 62; to be closed during infection, May, 1583, p. 63; complaint against, by the Lord Mayor, September, 1594, p. 76. And see Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines, I, 363, for a special performance there by a "virgin," February 22, 1582.]



CHAPTER IV

THE CURTAIN

Although James Burbage was, as his son asserted, "the first builder of playhouses," a second public playhouse followed hard on the Theatre, probably within twelve months. It was erected a short distance to the south of the Theatre,—that is, nearer the city,—and, like that building, it adjoined Finsbury Field.[106] To the two playhouses the audiences came trooping over the meadows, in "great multidudes," the Lord Mayor tells us; and the author of Tarlton's Newes out of Purgatory (c. 1589) describes their return to London thus: "With that I waked, and saw such concourse of people through the fields that I knew the play was done."[107]

[Footnote 106: The site is probably marked by Curtain Court in Chasserau's survey of 1745, reproduced on page 79.]

[Footnote 107: Ed. by J.O. Halliwell, for The Shakespeare Society (1844), p. 105.]

The new playhouse derived its name from the Curtain estate, on which it was erected.[108] This estate was formerly the property of the Priory of Holywell, and was described in 1538 as "scituata et existentia extra portas ejusdem nuper monasterii prope pasturam dicte nuper Priorisse, vocatam the Curteine."[109] Why it was so called is not clear. The name may have been derived from some previous owner of the property; it may, as Collier thought, have come from some early association with the walls (curtains) or defenses of the city; or, it may have come, as Tomlins suggests, from the mediaeval Latin cortina, meaning a court, a close, a farm enclosure.[110] Whatever its origin—the last explanation seems the most plausible—the interesting point is that it had no connection whatever with a stage curtain.

[Footnote 108: The Rose and the Red Bull derived their names in a similar way from the estates on which they were erected.]

[Footnote 109: Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines, I, 364.]

[Footnote 110: Tomlins, Origin of the Curtain Theatre, and Mistakes Regarding It, in The Shakespeare Society's Papers (1844), p. 29.]

The building was probably opened to the London public in the summer or autumn of 1577. The first reference to it is found in T[homas] W[hite]'s Sermon Preached at Pawles Crosse on Sunday the Thirde of November, 1577: "Behold the sumptuous theatre houses, a continual monument of London's prodigality and folly";[111] and a reference to it by name appears in Northbrooke's A Treatise, licensed December, 1577: "Those places, also, which are made up and builded for such plays and interludes, as the Theatre and Curtain."[112]

[Footnote 111: J.D. Wilson, The Cambridge History of English Literature, VI, 435, says that this sermon was "delivered at Paul's cross on 9 December, 1576 and, apparently, repeated on 3 November in the following year." This is incorrect; White did preach a sermon at Paul's Cross on December 9, but not the sermon from which this quotation is drawn.]

[Footnote 112: Ed. by J.P. Collier, for The Shakespeare Society (1843), p. 85.]

Like the Theatre, the Curtain was a peculiarly shaped building, specially designed for acting; "those playhouses that are erected and built only for such purposes ... namely the Curtain and the Theatre,"[113] writes the Privy Council; and the German traveler, Samuel Kiechel, who visited London in 1585, describes them as "sonderbare" structures. They are usually mentioned together, and in such a way as to suggest similarity of shape as well as of purpose. We may, I think, reasonably suppose that the Curtain was in all essential details a copy of Burbage's Theatre.[114] Presumably, then, it was polygonal (or circular) in shape,[115] was constructed of timber, and was finished on the outside with lime and plaster. The interior, as the evidence already cited in the chapter on the Theatre shows, consisted of three galleries surrounding an open yard. There was a platform projecting into the middle of the yard, with dressing-rooms at the rear, "heavens" overhead, and a flagpole rising above the "heavens." That some sign was displayed in front of the door is likely. Malone writes: "The original sign hung out at this playhouse (as Mr. Steevens has observed) was the painting of a curtain striped."[116] Aubrey records that Ben Jonson "acted and wrote, but both ill, at the Green Curtain, a kind of nursery or obscure playhouse somewhere in the suburbs, I think towards Shoreditch or Clerkenwell."[117] By "at the Green Curtain" Aubrey means, of course, "at the sign of the Green Curtain"; but the evidence of Steevens and of Aubrey is too vague and uncertain to warrant any definite conclusions.

[Footnote 113: Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council, XXVII, 313.]

[Footnote 114: It seems, however, to have been smaller than the Theatre.]

[Footnote 115: Johannes de Witt describes the Theatre and the Curtain along with the Swan and the Rose as "amphitheatra" (see page 167). It is quite possible that Shakespeare refers to the Curtain in the Prologue to Henry V as "this wooden O," though the reference may be to the Globe.]

[Footnote 116: Malone, Variorum, III, 54; cf. also Ellis, The Parish of St. Leonard.]

[Footnote 117: Did Steevens base his statement on this passage in Aubrey?]

Of the early history of the Curtain we know little, mainly because it was not, like certain other playhouses, the subject of extensive litigation. We do not even know who planned and built it. The first evidence of its ownership appears fifteen years after its erection, in some legal documents connected with the Theatre.[118] In July, 1592, Henry Lanman, described as "of London, gentleman, of the age of 54 years," deposed: "That true it is about 7 years now shall be this next winter, they, the said Burbage and Brayne, having the profits of plays made at the Theatre, and this deponent having the profits of the plays done at the house called the Curtain near to the same, the said Burbage and Brayne, taking the Curtain as an esore[119] to their playhouse, did of their own motion move this deponent that he would agree that the profits of the said two playhouses might for seven years space be in divident between them."[120]

[Footnote 118: Brayne v. Burbage, 1592, printed in full by Wallace, The First London Theatre, pp. 109-52. See especially pp. 126, 148.]

[Footnote 119: Easer?]

[Footnote 120: Wallace, op. cit., p. 148; cf. p. 126.]



From this statement it is evident that Henry Lanman was the sole proprietor of the Curtain as far back as 1585, and the presumption is that his proprietorship was of still earlier date. This presumption is strengthened by the fact that in a sale of the Curtain estate early in 1582, he is specifically mentioned as having a tenure of an "edifice or building" erected in the Curtain Close, that is, that section of the estate next to the Field, on which the playhouse was built.[121] Since Lanman is not mentioned as having any other property on the estate, the "edifice or building" referred to was probably the playhouse. The document gives no indication as to how long he had held possession of the "edifice," but the date of sale, March, 1582, carries us back to within four years of the erection of the Curtain, and it seems reasonable to suppose, though of course we cannot be sure, that Lanman had been proprietor of the building from the very beginning.[122]

[Footnote 121: Tomlins, op. cit., pp. 29-31.]

[Footnote 122: Of this Henry Lanman we know nothing beyond the facts here revealed. Possibly he was a brother of the distinguished actor John Lanman (the name is variously spelled Lanman, Laneman, Lenmann, Laneham, Laynman, Lanham), one of the chief members of Leicester's troupe, and one of the twelve men selected in 1583 to form the Queen's Men. But speculation of this sort is vain. It is to be hoped that in the future some student will investigate the life of this obscure theatrical manager, and trace his connection with the early history of the drama.]

Certain records of the sale of the Curtain estate shortly before and shortly after the erection of the playhouse are preserved, but these throw very little light upon the playhouse itself. We learn that on February 20, 1567, Lord Mountjoy and his wife sold the estate to Maurice Longe, clothworker, and his son William Longe, for the sum of L60; and that on August 23, 1571, Maurice Longe and his wife sold it to the then Lord Mayor, Sir William Allyn, for the sum of L200. In both documents the property is described in the same words: "All that house, tenement or lodge commonly called the Curtain, and all that parcel of ground and close, walled and enclosed with a brick wall on the west and north parts, called also the Curtain Close." The lodge here referred to, generally known as "Curtain House," was on, or very near, Holywell Lane;[123] the playhouse, as already stated, was erected in the close near the Field.[124]

[Footnote 123: Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines, I, 365.]

[Footnote 124: The Privy Council on March 10, 1601, refers to it as "The Curtaine in Moorefeildes"; in ancient times, says Stow, Moorefields extended to Holywell. See Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines, I, 364.]

How long Sir William Allyn held the property, or why it reverted to the Longe family, we do not know. But on March 18, 1582, we find William Longe, the son of "Maurice Longe, citizen and clothworker, of London, deceased," selling the same property, described in the same words, to one "Thomas Harberte, citizen and girdler, of London." In the meantime, of course, the playhouse had been erected, but no clear or direct mention of the building is made in the deed of sale. Possibly it was included in the conventionally worded phrase: "and all and singular other messuages, tenements, edifices, and buildings, with all and singular their appurtenances, erected and builded upon the said close called the Curtain."[125] Among the persons named as holding tenures of the above-mentioned "edifices and buildings" in the close was Henry Lanman. It seems not improbable, therefore, that the Curtain, like the Theatre, was erected on leased ground.

[Footnote 125: Tomlins, op. cit., p. 31.]

It is impossible to give a connected history of the Curtain. Most of the references to it that we now possess are invectives in early puritanical writings, or bare mention, along with other playhouses, in letters or ordinances of the Privy Council and the Lord Mayor. Such references as these do not much help us in determining what companies successively occupied the building, or what varying fortunes marked its ownership and management. Yet a few scattered facts have sifted down to us, and these I have arranged in chronological order.

On the afternoon of April 6, 1580, an earthquake, especially severe in Holywell, shook the building during the performance of a play, and greatly frightened the audience. Munday says merely: "at the playhouses the people came running forth, surprised with great astonishment";[126] but Stubbes, the Puritan, who saw in the event a "fearful judgment of God," writes with fervor: "The like judgment almost did the Lord show unto them a little before, being assembled at their theatres to see their bawdy interludes and other trumperies practised, for He caused the earth mightily to shake and quaver, as though all would have fallen down; whereat the people, sore amazed, some leapt down from the top of the turrets, pinnacles, and towers where they stood, to the ground, whereof some had their legs broke, some their arms, some their backs, some hurt one where, some another, and many score crushed and bruised."[127]

[Footnote 126: View of Sundry Examples, 1580.]

[Footnote 127: The Anatomy of Abuses, ed. F.J. Furnivall, New Shakspere Society, p. 180. For other descriptions of this earthquake see Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines, I, 369.]

The disturbance at the Theatre and the Curtain in 1584, when one Challes "did turn upon the toe upon the belly of" an apprentice "sleeping upon the grass" in the Field near by, has been mentioned in the preceding chapter. If the interpretation of the facts there given is correct, Lord Arundel's Players were then occupying the Curtain.

In the winter of 1585 Lanman entered into his seven years' agreement with Burbage and Brayne by which the Theatre and the Curtain were placed under one management, and the profits shared "in divident between them." This agreement was faithfully kept by both parties, but there is no evidence that after the expiration of the seven years, in the winter of 1592, the affiliation was continued. What effect the arrangement had upon the companies of players occupying the two theatres we cannot now determine. To this period, however, I would assign the appearance of the Queen's Men at the Curtain.[128]

[Footnote 128: Tarlton's Jests, ed. by J.O. Halliwell for the Shakespeare Society (1844), p. 16. For a discussion see the preceding chapter on the Theatre, p. 72.]

On July 28, 1597, as a result of the performance of Thomas Nashe's The Isle of Dogs, by Pembroke's Men at the Swan,[129] the Privy Council ordered the plucking down of "the Curtain and the Theatre."[130] The order, however, was not carried out, and in October plays were allowed again as before.

[Footnote 129: For details see the chapter on the Swan.]

[Footnote 130: Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council, XXVII, 313.]

At this time the Lord Chamberlain's men were at the Curtain, having recently moved thither in consequence of the difficulties Cuthbert Burbage was having with Gyles Alleyn over the Theatre property. During the stay of the Chamberlain's Company, which numbered among its members William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, William Kempe (who had succeeded Tarleton in popular favor as a clown), John Heminges, Thomas Pope, and Augustine Phillips, the playhouse probably attained its greatest distinction. Both Shakespeare and Jonson wrote plays for the troupe; Romeo and Juliet, we are told, "won Curtain plaudities," as no doubt did many other of Shakespeare's early masterpieces; and Jonson's Every Man in His Humour created such enthusiasm here on its first performance as to make its author famous.[131]

[Footnote 131: Marston, The Scourge of Villainy (1598); Bullen, The Works of John Marston, III, 372.]

In the summer of 1599 the Chamberlain's Men moved into their splendid new home, the Globe, on the Bankside, and the Curtain thus abandoned fell on hard times. Perhaps it was let occasionally to traveling troupes; in Jeaffreson's Middlesex County Records, under the date of March 11, 1600, is a notice of the arrest of one William Haukins "charged with a purse taken at a play at the Curtain." But shortly after, in April, 1600, when Henslowe and Alleyn began to erect their splendid new Fortune Playhouse, they were able to give the impression to Tilney, the Master of the Revels, and to the Privy Council, that the Curtain was to be torn down. Thus in the Council's warrant for the building of the Fortune, dated April 8, 1600, we read that "another house is [to be] pulled down instead of it";[132] and when the Puritans later made vigorous protests against the erection of the Fortune, the Council defended itself by stating that "their Lordships have been informed by Edmund Tilney, Esquire, Her Majesty's servant, and Master of the Revels, that the house now in hand to be built by the said Edward Alleyn is not intended to increase the number of the playhouses, but to be instead of another, namely the Curtain, which is either to be ruined and plucked down, or to be put to some other good use."[133]

[Footnote 132: Greg, Henslowe Papers, p. 52.]

[Footnote 133: The Malone Society's Collections, I, 82.]

All this talk of the Curtain's being plucked down or devoted to other uses suggests a contemplated change in the ownership or management of the building. We do not know when Lanman died (in 1592 he described himself as fifty-four years of age),[134] but we do know that at some date prior to 1603 the Curtain had passed into the hands of a syndicate. When this syndicate was organized, or who constituted its members, we cannot say. Thomas Pope, in his will, dated July 22, 1603, mentions his share "of, in, and to all that playhouse, with the appurtenances, called the Curtain";[135] and John Underwood, in his will, dated October 4, 1624, mentions his "part or share ... in the said playhouses called the Blackfriars, the Globe on the Bankside, and the Curtain."[136] It may be significant that both Pope and Underwood were sharers also in the Globe. Since, however, further information is wanting, it is useless to speculate. We can only say that at some time after the period of Lanman's sole proprietorship, the Curtain passed into the hands of a group of sharers; and that after a discussion in 1600 of demolishing the building or devoting it to other uses, it entered upon a long and successful career.

[Footnote 134: Wallace, op. cit., p. 148.]

[Footnote 135: J.P. Collier, Lives of the Original Actors in Shakespeare's Plays, p. 127. In exactly the same words Pope disposed of his share in the Globe.]

[Footnote 136: Ibid., p. 230.]

On May 10, 1601, "the actors at the Curtain"[137] gave serious offense by representing on the stage persons "of good desert and quality, that are yet alive, under obscure manner, but yet in such sort as all the hearers may take notice both of the matter and the persons that are meant thereby." The Privy Council ordered the Justices of the Peace to examine into the case and to punish the offenders.[138]

[Footnote 137: Possibly Derby's Men.]

[Footnote 138: See Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council, XXXI, 346.]

Early in 1604 a draft of a royal patent for Queen Anne's Players—who had hitherto been under the patronage of Worcester[139]—gives those players permission to act "within their now usual houses, called the Curtain, and the Boar's Head."[140] On April 9, 1604, the Privy Council authorized the three companies of players that had been taken under royal patronage "to exercise their plays in their several and usual houses for that purpose, and no other, viz., the Globe, scituate in Maiden Lane on the Bankside in the County of Surrey, the Fortune in Golding Lane, and the Curtain in Holywell."[141] The King's Men (the Burbage-Shakespeare troupe) occupied the Globe; Prince Henry's Men (the Henslowe-Alleyn troupe), the Fortune; and Queen Anne's Men, the Curtain.

[Footnote 139: The company was formed by an amalgamation of Oxford's and Worcester's Men in 1602. See The Malone Society's Collections, I, 85.]

[Footnote 140: The Malone Society's Collections, I, 266.]

[Footnote 141: Greg, Henslowe Papers, p. 61; Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council, XXXII, 511.]

But the Queen's Men were probably dissatisfied with the Curtain. It was small and antiquated, and it must have suffered by comparison with the more splendid Globe and Fortune. So the Queen's players had built for themselves a new and larger playhouse, called "The Red Bull." This was probably ready for occupancy in 1605, yet it is impossible to say exactly when the Queen's Men left the Curtain; their patent of April 15, 1609, gives them permission to act "within their now usual houses called the Red Bull, in Clerkenwell, and the Curtain in Holywell."[142] It may be that they retained control of the Curtain in order to prevent competition.

[Footnote 142: The Malone Society's Collections, I, 270.]

What company occupied the Curtain after Queen Anne's Men finally surrendered it is not clear. Mr. Murray is of the opinion that Prince Charles's Men moved into the Curtain "about December, 1609, or early in 1610."[143]

[Footnote 143: English Dramatic Companies, I, 230.]

In 1613 "a company of young men" acted The Hector of Germany "at the Red Bull and at the Curtain." Such plays, however, written and acted by amateurs, were not uncommon, and no significance can be attached to the event.

In 1622, as we learn from the Herbert Manuscripts, the Curtain was being occupied by Prince Charles's Servants.[144] In the same year the author of Vox Graculi, or The Jack Daw's Prognostication for 1623, refers to it thus: "If company come current to the Bull and Curtain, there will be more money gathered in one afternoon than will be given to Kingsland Spittle in a whole month; also, if at this time about the hours of four and five it wax cloudy and then rain downright, they shall sit dryer in the galleries than those who are the understanding men in the yard."

[Footnote 144: Malone, Variorum, III, 59; cf. Chalmers's Supplemental Apology, p. 213, note y. Murray gives the date incorrectly as 1623.]

Prince Charles's Men did not remain long at the Curtain. At some date between June 10 and August 19, 1623, they moved to the larger and more handsome Red Bull.[145] After this, so far as I can discover, there is no evidence to connect the playhouse with dramatic performances. Malone, who presumably bases his statements on the now lost records of Herbert, says that shortly after the accession of King Charles I it "seems to have been used only by prize-fighters."[146]

[Footnote 145: Murray, English Dramatic Companies, I, 237, note 1.]

[Footnote 146: Malone, Variorum, III, 54, note 2.]

The last mention of the Curtain is found in the Middlesex County Records under the date February 21, 1627.[147] It is merely a passing reference to "the common shoare near the Curtain playhouse," yet it is significant as indicating that the building was then still standing. What ultimately became of it we do not know. For a time, however, its memory survived in Curtain Court (see page 79), and to-day its fame is perpetuated in Curtain Road.

[Footnote 147: See Jeaffreson, Middlesex County Records, III, 164, from which the notice was quoted by Ordish, Early London Theatres, p. 106.]



CHAPTER V

THE FIRST BLACKFRIARS

The choir boys of the Chapel Royal, of Windsor, and of Paul's were all engaged in presenting dramatic entertainments before Queen Elizabeth. Each organization expected to be called upon one or more times a year—at Christmas, New Year's, and other like occasions—to furnish recreation to Her Majesty; and in return for its efforts each received a liberal "reward" in money. Richard Farrant, Master of the Windsor Chapel, was especially active in devising plays for the Queen's entertainment. But having a large family, he was poor in spite of his regular salary and the occasional "rewards" he received for the performances of his Boys at Court; and doubtless he often cast about in his mind for some way in which to increase his meagre income.

In the spring of 1576 James Burbage, having conceived the idea of a building devoted solely to plays, had leased a plot of ground for the purpose, and had begun the erection of the Theatre. By the autumn, no doubt, the building was nearing completion, if, indeed, it was not actually open to the public; and the experiment, we may suppose, was exciting much interest in the dramatic circles of London. It seems to have set Farrant to thinking. The professional actors, he observed, had one important advantage over the child actors: not only could they present their plays before the Queen and receive the usual court reward, but in addition they could present their plays before the public and thus reap a second and richer harvest. Since the child actors had, as a rule, more excellent plays than the professional troupes, and were better equipped with properties and costumes, and since they expended just as much energy in devising plays and in memorizing and rehearsing their parts, Farrant saw no reason why they, too, should not be allowed to perform before the public. This, he thought, might be done under the guise of rehearsals for the Court. Possibly the Queen might even wink at regular performances before the general public when she understood that this would train the Boys to be more skilful actors, would provide Her Majesty with more numerous and possibly more excellent plays, and would enable the Master and his assistants to live in greater comfort without affecting the royal purse.



For Farrant to build a playhouse specifically for the use of the Children was out of the question. In the first place, it would be too conspicuously a capitalization of the royal choristers for private gain; and in the second place, it would be far too hazardous a business venture for so poor a man as he to undertake. The more sensible thing for him to do was to rent somewhere a large hall which could at small expense be converted into a place suitable for training the Children in their plays, and for the entertainment of select—possibly at first invited—audiences. The performances, of course, were not to be heralded by a trumpet-and-drum procession through the street, by the flying of a flag, and by such-like vulgar advertising as of a public show; instead, they were to be quiet, presumably "private," and were to attract only noblemen and those citizens of the better class who were interested in the drama.[148]

[Footnote 148: From this notion of privacy, I take it, arose the term "private" theatre as distinguished from "common" or "public" theatre. The interpretation of the term suggested by Mr. W.J. Lawrence, and approved by Mr. William Archer, namely, that it was a legal device to escape the city ordinance of 1574, cannot be accepted. The city had no jurisdiction over the precinct of Blackfriars, nor did Farrant live in the building.]



Such was Farrant's scheme. In searching for a hall suitable for his purpose, his mind at once turned to the precinct of Blackfriars, where in former years the Office of the Revels had been kept, and where the Children had often rehearsed their plays. The precinct had once, as the name indicates, been in the possession of the Dominican or "Black" Friars. The Priory buildings had consisted chiefly of a great church two hundred and twenty feet long and sixty-six feet broad, with a cloister on the south side of the church forming a square of one hundred and ten feet, and a smaller cloister to the south of this. At the dissolution of the religious orders, the property had passed into the possession of the Crown; hence, though within the city walls, it was not under the jurisdiction of the city authorities. Farrant probably did not anticipate any interference on the part of the Common Council with the royal choristers "practicing" their plays in order "to yield Her Majesty recreation and delight," yet the absolute certainty of being free from the adverse legislation of the London authorities was not to be ignored. Moreover, the precinct was now the home of many noblemen and wealthy gentlemen, and Farrant probably thought that, as one of the most fashionable residential districts in London, it was suitable for "private" performances to be given by members of Her Majesty's household.

In furthering his project he sought the counsel and aid of his "very friend" Sir Henry Neville, Lieutenant of Windsor, who, it is to be presumed, was interested in the Windsor Boys. It happened that Neville knew of exactly such rooms as were desired, rooms in the old monastery of Blackfriars which he himself had once leased as a residence, and which, he heard, were "to be let either presently, or very shortly." These rooms were in the southwestern corner of the monastery, on the upper floor of two adjoining buildings formerly used by the monks as a buttery and a frater. A history of the rooms up to the time of their use as a theatre may be briefly sketched.

In 1548 the buttery and frater, with certain other buildings, were let by King Edward to Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the Revels; and in 1550 they were granted to him outright. In 1554 Cawarden sold the northern section of the buttery, fifty-two feet in length, to Lord Cobham, whose mansion it adjoined. The rest of the buttery, forty-six feet in length, and the frater, he converted into lodgings. Since the frater was of exceptional breadth—fifty-two feet on the outside, forty-six feet on the inside—he ran a partition through its length, dividing it into two parts. The section of the frater on the west of this partition he let to Sir Richard Frith; the section on the east, with the remainder of the buttery not sold to Lord Cobham, he let to Sir John Cheeke. It is with the Cheeke Lodgings that we are especially concerned.

About September, 1554, Cheeke went to travel abroad, and surrendered his rooms in the Blackfriars. Sir Thomas Cawarden thereupon made use of them "for the Office of the Queen's Majesty's Revells"; thus for a time the Cheeke Lodgings were intimately connected with dramatic activities. But at the death of Cawarden, in 1559, the Queen transferred the Office of the Revels to St. John's, and the Blackfriars property belonging to Cawarden passed into the possession of Sir William More.



In 1560 the new proprietor let the Cheeke Lodgings to Sir Henry Neville, with the addition of "a void piece of ground" eighteen feet wide extending west to Water Lane.[149] During his tenancy Neville erected certain partitions, built a kitchen in the "void piece of ground," and a large stairway leading to the rooms overhead. In 1568 he surrendered his lease, and More let the rooms first to some "sylk dyers," and then in 1571 to Lord Cobham. In 1576 Cobham gave up the rooms, and More was seeking a tenant. It was at this auspicious moment that Farrant planned a private theatre, and enlisted the aid of Sir Henry Neville.

[Footnote 149: This was enclosed with brick walls, and the greater part used as a wood-yard. This yard was later purchased by James Burbage when he secured the frater for his playhouse. The kitchen, shed, and stairs, built on the eastern part, were sold to Cobham.]

On August 27 Farrant and Neville separately wrote letters to Sir William More about the matter. Farrant respectfully solicited the lease, and made the significant request that he might "pull down one partition, and so make two rooms—one." Neville, in a friendly letter beginning with "hearty commendations unto you and to Mrs. More," and ending with light gossip, urged Sir William to let the rooms to Farrant, and recommended Farrant as a desirable tenant ("I dare answer for him"). Neither letter mentioned the purpose for which the rooms, especially the large room referred to by Farrant, were to be used; but More doubtless understood that the Windsor Children were to practice their plays there, with occasional private rehearsals. Largely as a result of Neville's recommendation, More decided to let the rooms to Farrant. The progress of the negotiations is marked by a letter from Farrant to More, dated September 17, 1576, requesting that there be granted him also a certain "little dark room," which he found would be useful.

The lease as finally signed describes the property thus:

Sir William More hath demised, granted, and to ferm letten, and by these presents doth demise, grant, and to ferm let unto the said Richard Farrant all those his six upper chambers, lofts, lodgings, or rooms, lying together within the precinct of the late dissolved house or priory of the Blackfriars, otherwise called the friars preachers, in London; which said six upper chambers, lofts, lodgings, or rooms, were lately, amongst others, in the tenure and occupation of the right honourable Sir William Brooke, Knight, Lord Cobham; and do contain in length from the north end thereof to the south end of the same one hundred fifty and six foot and a half of assize; whereof two of the said six upper chambers, lofts, lodgings, or rooms in the north end of the premises, together with the breadth of the little room under granted, do contain in length forty[150] and six foot and a half, and from the east to the west part thereof in breadth twenty and five foot of assize;[151] and the four other chambers, or rooms, residue of the said six upper chambers, do contain in length one hundred and ten foot, and in breadth from the east to the west part thereof twenty-two foot of assize.... And also ... the great stairs lately erected and made by the said Sir Henry Neville upon part of the said void ground and way.

[Footnote 150: By an error in the manuscript this reads "fifty"; but the rooms are often described and always as "forty-six" feet in length; moreover, the error is made obvious by the rest of the lease.]

[Footnote 151: The breadth is elsewhere given as twenty-six, and twenty-seven feet.]

It was agreed that the lease should run for twenty-one years, and that the rental should be L14 per annum. But Sir William More, being a most careful and exacting landlord, with the interest of his adjacent lodgings to care for, inserted in the lease the following important proviso, which was destined to make trouble, and ultimately to wreck the theatre:

Provided also that the said Richard Farrant, his executors or assigns, or any of them, shall not in any wise demise, let, grant, assign, set over, or by any ways or means put away his or their interest or term of years, or any part of the same years, of or in the said premises before letten, or any part, parcel, or member thereof to any person, or persons, at any time hereafter during this present lease and term of twenty-one years, without the special license, consent, and agreement of the said Sir William More, his heirs and assigns, first had, and obtained in writing under his and their hands and seals.

The penalty affixed to a violation of this provision was the immediate forfeiture of the lease.

Apparently Farrant entered into possession of the rooms on September 29[152] (although the formal lease was not signed until December 20), and we may suppose that he at once set about converting the two upper rooms at the north end of the lodgings into a suitable theatre.[153] Naturally he took for his model the halls at Court in which the Children had been accustomed to act. First, we are told, he "pulled down partitions to make that place apt for that purpose"; next, he "spoiled" the windows—by which is meant, no doubt, that he stopped up the windows, for the performances were to be by candle-light. At one end of the hall he erected a platform to serve as a stage, and in the auditorium he placed benches or chairs. There was, presumably, no room for a gallery; if such had been erected, the indignant More would certainly have mentioned it in his bill of complaints.[154] Chandeliers over the stage, and, possibly, footlights, completed the necessary arrangements. For these alterations Farrant, we are told, became "greatly indebted," and he died three or four years later with the debt still unpaid. More complained that the alterations had put the rooms into a state of "great ruin," which meant, of course, from the point of view of a landlord desiring to let them again for residential purposes. Just how costly or how extensive the alterations were we cannot now determine; but we may reasonably conclude that Farrant made the hall not only "commodious for his purpose," but also attractive to the aristocratic audiences he intended to gather there to see his plays.

[Footnote 152: The date from which the lease was made to run.]

[Footnote 153: It is usually said that he converted the entire seven rooms into his theatre, but that seems highly unlikely. The northern section was 46 x 26 feet, the southern section 110 x 22—absurd dimensions for an auditorium. Moreover, that Farrant originally planned to use only the northern section is indicated by his request to be allowed to "pull down one partition and so make two rooms—one." The portion not used for the playhouse he rented; in 1580, we are told, he let "two parcels thereof to two several persons."]

[Footnote 154: M. Feuillerat, I think, is wrong in supposing that there was a gallery. He deduces no proof for his contention, and the evidence is against him.]

To reach the hall, playgoers had to come first into Water Lane, thence through "a way leading from the said way called Water Lane" to "a certain void ground" before the building. Here "upon part of the said void ground" they found a "great stairs, which said great stairs do serve and lead into" the upper rooms—or, as we may now say, Blackfriars Playhouse.[155]

[Footnote 155: There must have been two stairways leading to the upper rooms; I have assumed that playgoers used Neville's stairs to reach the theatre.]

Having thus provided a playhouse, Farrant next provided an adequate company of boy actors. To do this, he combined the Children of Windsor with the Children of the Chapel Royal, of which William Hunnis was master. What arrangement he made with Hunnis we do not know, but the Court records show that Farrant was regarded as the manager of the new organization; he is actually referred to in the payments as "Master of the Children of Her Majesty's Chapel," and Hunnis's official connection with the Children is ignored.

Farrant may have been able to open his playhouse before the close of the year; or he may have first begun performances there in the early months of 1577. He would certainly be anxious to make use of the new play he was preparing for presentation at Court on Twelfth Day, January 6, 1577.

For four years, 1576-1580, the playhouse was operated without trouble. Sir William More, however, was not pleased at the success with which the actors were meeting. He asserted that when he made the lease he was given to understand that the building was to be used "only for the teaching of the Children of the Chapel"—with, no doubt, a few rehearsals to which certain persons would be privately invited. But, now, to his grief, he discovered that Farrant had "made it a continual house for plays." He asserted that the playhouse had become offensive to the precinct; and doubtless some complaints had been made to him, as landlord, by the more aristocratic inhabitants.[156] At any rate, he became anxious to regain possession of the building.

[Footnote 156: I suspect that the theatre gave greater offense to More himself than it did to any one else, for it adjoined his home, and the audience made use of the private passage which led from Water Lane to his mansion. Unquestionably he suffered worse than any one else both from the noise and the crowds.]

In the autumn of 1580 he saw an opportunity to break the lease and close the playhouse. Farrant made the mistake of letting "two parcels thereof to two severall persons" without first gaining the written consent of More, and at once More "charged him with forfeiture of his lease." But before More could "take remedy against him" Farrant died, November 30, 1580. More, however, "entered upon the house, and refused to receive any rent but conditionally."

By his will, proved March 1, 1581, Farrant left the lease of the Blackfriars to his widow, Anne Farrant. But she had no authority over the royal choristers, nor was she qualified to manage a company of actors, even if she had had the time to do so after caring for her "ten little ones." What use, if any, was made of the playhouse during the succeeding winter we do not know. The widow writes that she, "being a sole woman, unable of herself to use the said rooms to such purpose as her said husband late used them, nor having any need or occasion to occupy them to such commodity as would discharge the rents due for the said rooms in the bill alledged, nor being able to sustain, repair, and amend the said rooms," etc.;[157] the natural inference from which is that for a time the playhouse stood unused. The widow, of course, was anxious to sublet the building to some one who could make use of it as a playhouse; and on December 25, 1580, she addressed a letter to Sir William More asking his written permission to make such a disposal of the lease. The letter has a pathetic interest that justifies its insertion here:

To the right worshipful Sir William More, Knight, at his house near Guilford, give these with speed.

Right worshipful Sir:

After my humble commendations, and my duty also remembered—where it hath pleased your worship to grant unto my husband in his life time one lease of your house within the Blackfriars, for the term of twenty-one years, with a proviso in the end thereof that he cannot neither let nor set the same without your worship's consent under your hand in writing. And now for that it hath pleased God to call my said husband unto His mercy, having left behind him the charge of ten small children upon my hand, and my husband besides greatly indebted, not having the revenue of one groat any way coming in, but by making the best I may of such things as he hath left behind him, to relieve my little ones. May it therefore please your worship, of your abundant clemency and accustomed goodness, to consider a poor widow's distressed estate, and for God's cause to comfort her with your worship's warrant under your hand to let and set the same to my best comodity during the term of years in the said lease contained, not doing any waste. In all which doing, I shall evermore most abundantly pray unto God for the preservation of your worship's long continuance. From Grenwich, the twenty-fifth of December,

By a poor and sorrowful widow,

ANNE FARRANT.[158]

[Footnote 157: Wallace, The Evolution of the English Drama, p. 163.]

[Footnote 158: Wallace, The Evolution of the English Drama, p. 153.]

Whether she secured in writing the permission she requested we do not know. Four years later More said that she did not. Possibly, however, she was orally given to understand that she might transfer the lease to her husband's former partner in the enterprise, William Hunnis.[159] Hunnis naturally was eager to make use of the building in preparation for the Christmas plays at Court. At some date before September 19, he secured the use of the playhouse on a temporary agreement with the widow; but in order to avoid any difficulty with More, he interviewed the latter, and presented a letter of recommendation from the Earl of Leicester. This letter has been preserved among Sir William's papers:

Sir William More:

Whereas my friend, Mr. Hunnis, this bearer, informeth me that he hath of late bought of Farrant's widow her lease of that house in Blackfriars which you made to her husband, deceased, and means there to practice the Queen's Children of the Chapel, being now in his charge, in like sort as his predecessor did, for the better training them to do Her Majesty's service; he is now a suitor to me to recommend him to your good favour—which I do very heartily, as one that I wish right well unto, and will give you thanks for any continuance or friendship you shall show him for the furtherance of this his honest request. And thus, with my hearty commendations, I wish you right heartily well to fare. From the Court, this nineteenth of September, 1581.

Your very friend,

R. LEICESTER.[160]

[Footnote 159: More had "refused to accept any rent but conditionally." Probably he refused written consent to the sublease for the same reason.]

[Footnote 160: Wallace, The Evolution of the English Drama, p. 154.]

The result of this interview we do not know. But on December 20 following, the widow made a formal lease of the property to William Hunnis and John Newman, at a rental of L20 13s. 4d. a year, an increase of L6 13s. 4d. over the rental she had to pay More. She required of them a bond of L100 to guarantee their performance of all the covenants of the lease. Thereupon the theatre under Hunnis and Newman resumed its career—if, indeed, this had ever been seriously interrupted.

In the course of time, More's anxiety to recover possession of the hall seems to have increased. The quarterly payments were not promptly met by the widow, and the repairs on the building were not made to his satisfaction. Probably through fear of the increasing dissatisfaction on the part of More, Hunnis and Newman transferred their lease, in 1583, to a young Welsh scrivener, Henry Evans, who had become interested in dramatic affairs. This transfer of the lease without More's written consent was a second clear breach of the original contract, and it gave More exactly the opportunity he sought. Accordingly, he declared the original lease to Farrant void, and made a new lease of the house "unto his own man, Thomas Smallpiece, to try the said Evans his right." But Evans, being a lawyer, knew how to take care of himself. He "demurred in law," and "kept the same in his hands with long delays."

The widow, alarmed at the prospect of losing her lease, brought suit, in December, 1583, against Hunnis and Newman separately for the forfeiture of their several bonds of L100, contending that they had not paid promptly according to their agreement, and had not kept the building in proper repair. Hunnis and Newman separately brought suit in the Court of Requests for relief against the widow's suits. Meanwhile More was demanding judgment against Evans. Hunnis, it seems, carried his troubles to the Court and there sought help. Queen Elizabeth could take no direct action, because Sir William More was a good friend of hers, who had entertained her in his home. But she might enlist the aid of one of her noblemen who were interested in the drama. However this was, the young Earl of Oxford, himself a playwright and the patron of a troupe of boy-actors, came to the rescue of the theatre. He bought the lease of the building from Evans, and undertook to reorganize its affairs. To Hunnis's twelve Children of the Chapel he added the Children of St. Paul's Cathedral, making thus a company of adequate size. He retained Hunnis, no doubt, as one of the trainers of the Boys, and he kept Evans as manager of the troupe. Moreover, shortly after the purchase, probably in June, 1583, he made a free gift of the lease to his private secretary, John Lyly, a young man who had recently won fame with the first English novel, Euphues. The object of this, like the preceding transfers of title, it seems, was to put as many legal blocks in the path of Sir William More as possible. More realized this, and complained specifically that "the title was posted from one to another"; yet he had firmly made up his mind to recover the property, and in spite of Oxford's interference, he instructed his "learned council" to "demand judgment."

Meanwhile the dramatic organization at Blackfriars continued under the direction of Hunnis, Evans, and Lyly, with the Earl of Oxford as patron. Not only was Lyly the proprietor of the theatre, but he attempted to supply it with the necessary plays. He had already shown his power to tell in effective prose a pleasing love romance. That power he now turned to the production of his first play, written in haste for the Christmas festivities. The play, Alexander and Campaspe, was presented before Her Majesty on January 1, 1584, and at Blackfriars, with great applause. Lyly's second play, Sapho and Phao, was produced at Court on March 3, following, and also at Blackfriars before the general public.

But at the Easter term, 1584, Sir William More got judgment in his favor. The widow begged Sir Francis Walsingham to intercede in her behalf, declaring that the loss of the lease "might be her utter undoing."[161] Walsingham sent the letter to More, and apparently urged a consideration of her case. More, however, refused to yield. He banished Lyly, Hunnis, Evans, and the Children from the "great upper hall," and reconverted the building into tenements.

[Footnote 161: The letter is printed in full by Mr. Wallace in The Evolution of the English Drama, p. 158. Mr. Wallace, however, misdates it. It was not written until after More had "recovered it [the lease] against Evans."]



CHAPTER VI

ST. PAUL'S

As shown in the preceding chapter, not only were the Children of the Chapel Royal and of Windsor called upon to entertain the Queen with dramatic performances, but the Children of St. Paul's were also expected to amuse their sovereign on occasion. And following the example of the Children of the Chapel and of Windsor in giving performances before the public in Blackfriars, the Paul's Boys soon began to give such performances in a building near the Cathedral.[162] The building so employed was doubtless one of the structures owned by the Church. Burbage and Heminges refer to it as "the said house near St. Paul's Church."[163] Richard Flecknoe, in A Discourse of the English Stage (1664), places it "behind the Convocation-house in Paul's";[164] and Howes, in his continuation of Stow's Annals (1631), says that it was the "singing-school" of the Cathedral.[165] That the auditorium was small we may well believe. So was the stage. Certain speakers in the Induction to What You Will, acted at Paul's in 1600, say: "Let's place ourselves within the curtains, for, good faith, the stage is so very little, we shall wrong the general eye else very much." Both Fleay and Lawrence[166] contend that the building was "round, like the Globe," and as evidence they cite the Prologue to Marston's Antonio's Revenge, acted at Paul's in 1600, in which the phrases "within this round" and "within this ring" are applied to the theatre. The phrases, however, may have reference merely to the circular disposition of the benches about the stage. That high prices of admission to the little theatre were charged we learn from a marginal note in Pappe with an Hatchet (1589), which states that if a tragedy "be showed at Paul's, it will cost you four pence; at the Theatre two pence."[167] The Children, indeed, catered to a very select public. Persons who went thither were gentle by birth and by behavior as well; and playwrights, we are told, could always feel sure there of the "calm attention of a choice audience."[168] Lyly, in the Prologue to Midas, acted at Paul's in 1589, says: "Only this doth encourage us, that presenting our studies before Gentlemen, though they receive an inward dislike, we shall not be hissed with an open disgrace." Things were quite otherwise in the public theatres of Shoreditch and the Bankside.

[Footnote 162: Murray, English Dramatic Companies, I, 325, erroneously says: "Their public place was, probably, from the first, the courtyard of St. Paul's Cathedral."]

[Footnote 163: Wallace, Shakespeare and his London Associates, p. 95.]

[Footnote 164: That is, in or near Pater Noster Row.]

[Footnote 165: Annales, or A Generall Chronicle of England, 1631, signature liii 1, verso.]

[Footnote 166: F.G. Fleay, A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, II, 76; W.J. Lawrence, The Elizabethan Playhouse, p. 17.]

[Footnote 167: R.W. Bond, The Complete Works of John Lyly, III, 408. Higher prices of admission were charged to all the private playhouses.]

[Footnote 168: John Marston, Antonio's Revenge, acted at Paul's in 1600.]

Under the direction of their master, Sebastian Westcott, the Boys acted before the public at least as early as 1578,[169] for in December of that year the Privy Council ordered the Lord Mayor to permit them to "exercise plays" within the city;[170] and Stephen Gosson, in his Plays Confuted, written soon afterwards, mentions Cupid and Psyche as having been recently "plaid at Paules."

[Footnote 169: There is a record of a play by the Paul's Boys in 1527 before ambassadors from France, dealing with the heretic Luther; but exactly when they began to give public performances for money we do not know.]

[Footnote 170: Malone, Variorum, III, 432.]

Westcott died in 1582, and was succeeded by Thomas Gyles. Shortly after this we find the Children of Paul's acting publicly with the Children of the Chapel Royal at the little theatre in Blackfriars. For them John Lyly wrote his two earliest plays, Campaspe and Sapho and Phao, as the title-pages clearly state. But their stay at Blackfriars was short. When in 1584 Sir William More closed up the theatre there, they fell back upon their singing-school as the place for their public performances.

At the same time the Queen became greatly interested in promoting their dramatic activities. To their master, Thomas Gyles, she issued, in April, 1585, a special commission "to take up apt and meet children" wherever he could find them. It was customary for the Queen to issue such a commission to the masters of her two private chapels, but never before, or afterwards, had this power to impress children been conferred upon a person not directly connected with the royal choristers. Its issuance to Gyles in 1585 clearly indicates the Queen's interest in the Paul's Boys as actors, and her expectation of being frequently entertained by them. And to promote her plans still further, she appointed the successful playwright John Lyly as their vice-master, with the understanding, no doubt, that he was to keep them—and her—supplied with plays. This he did, for all his comedies, except the two just mentioned, were written for the Cathedral Children, and were acted by them at Court, and in their little theatre "behind the Convocation House."

Unfortunately under Lyly's leadership the Boys became involved in the bitter Martin Marprelate controversy, for which they were suppressed near the end of 1590. The printer of Lyly's Endimion, in 1591, says to the reader: "Since the plays in Paul's were dissolved, there are certain comedies come to my hands by chance, which were presented before Her Majesty at several times by the Children of Paul's."

Exactly how long the Children were restrained it is hard to determine. In 1596 Thomas Nash, in Have With You to Saffron Walden, expressed a desire to see "the plays at Paul's up again." Mr. Wallace thinks they may have been allowed "up again" in 1598;[171] Fleay, in 1599 or 1600;[172] the evidence, however, points, I think, to the spring or early summer of 1600. The Children began, naturally, with old plays, "musty fopperies of antiquity"; the first, or one of the first, new plays they presented was Marston's Jack Drum's Entertainment, the date of which can be determined within narrow limits. References to Kempe's Morris, which was danced in February, 1600, as being still a common topic of conversation, and the entry of the play in the Stationers' Registers on September 8, 1600, point to the spring or early summer of 1600 as the date of composition. This makes very significant the following passage in the play referring to the Paul's Boys as just beginning to act again after their long inhibition:

Sir Ed. I saw the Children of Paul's last night, And troth they pleas'd me pretty, pretty well. The Apes in time will do it handsomely.

Plan. S'faith, I like the audience that frequenteth there With much applause. A man shall not be choak't With the stench of garlic, nor be pasted To the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer.

Bra. Ju. 'Tis a good, gentle audience; and I hope the Boys Will come one day into the Court of Requests.

[Footnote 171: The Children of the Chapel, p. 153.]

[Footnote 172: A Chronicle History of the London Stage, p. 152.]

Shortly after this the Boys were indeed called "into the Court of Requests," for on New Year's Day, 1601, they were summoned to present a play before Her Majesty.

Their master now was Edward Pierce, who had succeeded Thomas Gyles. In 1605 the experienced Edward Kirkham, driven from the management of the Blackfriars Theatre, became an assistant to Pierce in the management of Paul's. In this capacity we find him in 1606 receiving the payment for the two performances of the Boys at Court that year.[173]

[Footnote 173: Cunningham, Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels, p. XXXVIII.]

Among the playwrights engaged by Pierce to write for Paul's were Marston, Middleton, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, and Beaumont; and, as a result, some of the most interesting dramas of the period were first acted on the small stage of the singing-school. Details in the history of the Children, however, are few. We find an occasional notice of their appearance at Court, but our record of them is mainly secured from the title-pages of their plays.

The last notice of a performance by them is as follows: "On the 30th of July, 1606, the youths of Paul's, commonly called the Children of Paul's, played before the two Kings [of England and of Denmark] a play called Abuses, containing both a comedy and a tragedy, at which the Kings seemed to take great delight and be much pleased."[174]

[Footnote 174: Nichols, The Progresses of James, IV, 1073.]

The reason why the Children ceased to act is made clear in the lawsuit of Keysar v. Burbage et al., recently discovered and printed by Mr. Wallace.[175] From this we learn that when Rosseter became manager of the Children of the Queen's Revels at the private playhouse of Whitefriars in 1609, he undertook to increase his profits by securing a monopoly both of child-acting and of private theatres. Blackfriars had been deserted, and the only other private theatre then in existence was Paul's. So Rosseter agreed to pay Pierce a dead rent of L20 a year to keep the Paul's playhouse closed:

One Mr. Rosseter, a partner of the said complainant, dealt for and compounded with the said Mr. Pierce to the only benefit of him, the said Mr. Rosseter, the now complainant, the rest of their partners and Company [at the Whitefriars] ... that thereby they might ... advance their gains and profit to be had and made in their said house in the Whitefriars, that there might be a cessation of playing and plays to be acted in the said house near St. Paul's Church aforesaid, for which the said Rosseter compounded with the said Pierce to give him the said Pierce twenty pounds per annum.[176]

[Footnote 175: Shakespeare and his London Associates, p. 80.]

[Footnote 176: Ibid., p. 95.]

In this attempt to secure a monopoly in private playhouses Rosseter was foiled by the coming of Shakespeare's troupe to the Blackfriars; but the King's Men readily agreed to join in the payment of the dead rent to Pierce, for it was to their advantage also to eliminate competition.

The agreement which Rosseter secured from Pierce was binding "for one whole year"; whether it was renewed we do not know, but the Children never again acted in "their house near St. Paul's Church."



CHAPTER VII

THE BANKSIDE AND THE BEAR GARDEN

From time out of mind the suburb of London known as "the Bankside"—the term was loosely applied to all the region south of the river and west of the bridge—had been identified with sports and pastimes. On Sundays, holidays, and other festive occasions, the citizens, their wives, and their apprentices were accustomed to seek outdoor entertainment across the river, going thither in boats (of which there was an incredible number, converting "the silver sliding Thames" almost into a Venetian Grand Canal), or strolling on foot over old London Bridge. On the Bankside the visitors could find maypoles for dancing, butts for the practice of archery, and broad fields for athletic games; or, if so disposed, they could visit bull-baitings, bear-baitings, fairs, stage-plays, shows, motions, and other amusements of a similar sort.

Not all the attractions of the Bankside, however, were so innocent. For here, in a long row bordering the river's edge, were situated the famous stews of the city, licensed by authority of the Bishop of Winchester; and along with the stews, of course, such places as thrive in a district devoted to vice—houses for gambling, for coney-catching, and for evil practices of various sorts. The less said of this feature of the Bankside the better.

More needs to be said of the bull- and bear-baiting, which probably constituted the chief amusement of the crowds from the city, and which was later closely associated with the drama and with playhouses. This sport, now surviving in the bull-fights of Spain and of certain Spanish-American countries, was in former times one of the most popular species of entertainment cultivated by the English. Even so early as 1174, William Fitz-Stephen, in his Descriptio Nobilissimae Ciuitatis Londoniae, under the heading De Ludis, records that the London citizens diverted themselves on holiday occasions with the baiting of beasts, when "strong horn-goring bulls, or immense bears, contend fiercely with dogs that are pitted against them."[177] In some towns the law required that bulls intended for the butcher-shop should first be baited for the amusement of the public before being led to the slaughter-house. Erasmus speaks of the "many herds of bears" which he saw in England "maintained for the purpose of baiting." The baiting was accomplished by tying the bulls or bears to stakes, or when possible releasing them in an amphitheatre, and pitting against them bull-dogs, bred through centuries for strength and ferocity. Occasionally other animals, as ponies and apes, were brought into the fight, and the sport was varied in miscellaneous ways. Some of the animals, by unusual courage or success, endeared themselves to the heart of the sporting public. Harry Hunks, George Stone, and Sacarson were famous bears in Shakespeare's time; and the names of many of the "game bulls" and "mastiff dogs" became household words throughout London.

[Footnote 177: "Pingues tauri cornupetae, seu vrsi immanes, cum obiectis depugnant canibus."]



The home of this popular sport was the Bankside. The earliest extant map of Southwark,[178] drawn about 1542, shows in the very centre of High Street, just opposite London Bridge, a circular amphitheatre marked "The Bull Ring"; and doubtless there were other places along the river devoted to the same purpose. The baiting of bears was more closely identified with the Manor of Paris Garden,[179] that section of the Bank lying to the west of the Clink, over towards the marshes of Lambeth. The association of bear-baiting with this particular section was probably due to the fact that in early days the butchers of London used a part of the Manor of Paris Garden for the disposal of their offal,[180] and the entrails and other refuse from the slaughtered beasts furnished cheap and abundant food for the bears and dogs. The Earl of Manchester wrote to the Lord Mayor and the Common Council, in 1664, that he had been informed by the master of His Majesty's Game of Bears and Bulls, and others, that "the Butcher's Company had formerly caused all their offal in Eastcheap and Newgate Market to be conveyed by the beadle of the Company unto two barrow houses, conveniently placed on the river side, for the provision and feeding of the King's Game of Bears."

[Footnote 178: The map is reproduced in facsimile by Rendle as a frontispiece to Old Southwark and its People.]

[Footnote 179: Or Parish Garden, possibly the more correct form. For the early history of the Manor see William Bray, The History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey, III, 530; Wallace, in Englische Studien (1911), XLIII, 341, note 3; Ordish, Early London Theatres, p. 125.]

[Footnote 180: Blount, in his Glossographia (1681), p. 473, says of Paris Garden: "So called from Robert de Paris, who had a house and garden there in Richard II.'s time; who by proclamation, ordained that the butchers of London should buy that garden for receipt of their garbage and entrails of beasts, to the end the city might not be annoyed thereby."]



At first, apparently, the baiting of bears was held in open places,[181] with the bear tied to a stake and the spectators crowding around, or at best standing on temporary scaffolds. But later, permanent amphitheatres were provided. In Braun and Hogenberg's Map of London, drawn between 1554 and 1558, and printed in 1572, we find two well-appointed amphitheatres, with stables and kennels attached, labeled respectively "The Bear Baiting" and "The Bull Baiting." When these amphitheatres were erected we do not know, but probably they do not antedate by much the middle of the century.[182]

[Footnote 181: See Gilpin's Life of Cranmer for a description of a bear-baiting before the King held on or near the river's edge. See also the proclamation of Henry VIII in 1546 against the stews, which implies the non-existence of regular amphitheatres.]

[Footnote 182: Sir Sidney Lee (Shakespeare's England, II, 428) says that one of the amphitheatres was erected in 1526. I do not know his authority; he was apparently misled by one of Rendle's statements. Neither of the amphitheatres is shown in Wyngaerde's careful Map of London made about 1530-1540; possibly they are referred to in the Diary of Henry Machyn under the date of May 26, 1554. The old "Bull Ring" in High Street had then disappeared, and the baiting of bulls was henceforth more or less closely associated, as was natural, with the baiting of bears.]

It is to be noted that at this time neither "The Bull Baiting" nor "The Bear Baiting" is in the Manor of Paris Garden, but close by in the Liberty of the Clink. Yet the name "Paris Garden" continued to be used of the animal-baiting place for a century and more. Possibly the identification of bear-baiting with Paris Garden was of such long standing that Londoners could not readily adjust themselves to the change; they at first confused the terms "Bear Garden" and "Paris Garden," and later extended the term "Paris Garden" to include that section of the Clink devoted to the baiting of animals.

The two amphitheatres, it seems, were used until 1583, when a serious catastrophe put an end to one if not both of them. Stow, in his Annals, gives the following account of the accident:

The same thirteenth day of January, being Sunday, about four of the clock in the afternoon, the old and underpropped scaffolds round about the Bear Garden, commonly called Paris Garden, on the south side of the river of Thamis over against the city of London, overcharged with people, fell suddenly down, whereby to the number of eight persons, men and women, were slain, and many others sore hurt and bruised to the shortening of their lives.[183]

[Footnote 183: Stow, Annals (ed. 1631), p. 696.]

Stubbes, the Puritan, writes in his more heightened style:

Upon the 13 day of January last, being the Saboth day, Anno 1583, the people, men, women, and children, both young and old, an infinite number, flocking to those infamous places where these wicked exercises are usually practised (for they have their courts, gardens, and yards for the same purpose), when they were all come together and mounted aloft upon their scaffolds and galleries, and in the midst of all their jolity and pastime, all the whole building (not one stick standing) fell down with a most wonderful and fearful confusion. So that either two or three hundred men, women, and children (by estimation), whereof seven were killed dead, some were wounded, some lamed, and otherwise bruised and crushed almost to death. Some had their brains dashed out, some their heads all to-squashed, some their legs broken, some their arms, some their backs, some their shoulders, some one hurt, some another.[184]

[Footnote 184: Philip Stubbes, The Anatomie of Abuses (ed. Furnivall), p. 179.]

The building, which the Reverend John Field described as "old and rotten,"[185] was a complete ruin; "not a stick was left so high as the bear was fastened to." The Puritan preachers loudly denounced the unholy spectacles, pointing to the catastrophe as a clear warning from the Almighty; and the city authorities earnestly besought the Privy Council to put an end to such performances. Yet the owners of the building set to work at once, and soon had erected a new house, stronger and larger and more pretentious than before. The Lord Mayor, in some indignation, wrote to the Privy Council on July 3, 1583, that "the scaffolds are new builded, and the multitudes on the Saboth day called together in most excessive number."[186]

[Footnote 185: A Godly Exhortation by Occasion of the Late Judgement of God, Shewed at Paris-Garden (London, 1583). Another account of the disaster may be found in Vaughan's Golden Grove (1600).]

[Footnote 186: The Malone Society's Collections, I, 65.]

The New Bear Garden, octagonal in form, was probably modeled after the playhouses in Shoreditch, and made in all respects superior to the old amphitheatre which it supplanted.[187] We find that it was reckoned among the sights of the city, and was exhibited to distinguished foreign visitors. For example, when Sir Walter Raleigh undertook to entertain the French Ambassador, he carried him to view the monuments in Westminster Abbey and to see the new Bear Garden.

[Footnote 187: What became of the other amphitheatre labeled "The Bull Baiting" I do not know. Stow, in his Survey, 1598, says: "Now to return to the west bank, there be two bear gardens, the old and new places, wherein be kept bears, bulls, and other beasts to be baited."]



A picture of the building is to be seen in the Hondius View of London, 1610 (see page 149), and in the small inset views from the title-pages of Holland's Her[Greek: o]ologia, 1620, and Baker's Chronicle, 1643 (see page 147), all three of which probably go back to a view of London made between 1587 and 1597, and now lost. Another representation of the structure is to be seen in the Delaram portrait of King James, along with the Rose and the Globe (see opposite page 246). The best representation of the building, however, is in Visscher's View of London (see page 127), printed in 1616, but drawn several years earlier.[188]

[Footnote 188: For a fuller discussion of these various maps and views see pages 146, 248, and 328. Norden's map of 1594 (see page 147) merely indicates the site of the building.]

Although we are not directly concerned with the history of the Bear Garden,[189] a few descriptions of "the royal game of bears, bulls, and dogs" drawn from contemporary sources will be of interest and of specific value for the discussion of the Hope Playhouse—itself both a bear garden and a theatre.

[Footnote 189: For such a history the reader is referred to Ordish, Early London Theatres; Greg, Henslowe's Diary, II, and Henslowe Papers; Young, The History of Dulwich College; Rendle, The Bankside, and The Playhouses at Bankside.]

Robert Laneham, in his Description of the Entertainment at Kenilworth (1575), writes thus of a baiting of bears before the Queen:

Well, syr, the Bearz wear brought foorth intoo the Coourt, the dogs set too them.... It was a Sport very pleazaunt of theez beastz; to see the bear with his pink nyez leering after hiz enemiez approoch, the nimbleness & wayt of ye dog to take his auauntage, and the fors & experiens of the bear agayn to auoyd the assauts: if he war bitten in one place, how he woold pynch in an oother to get free: that if he wear taken onez, then what shyft, with byting, with clawing, with rooring, tossing, & tumbling he woold woork to wynd hym self from them: and when he waz lose, to shake his earz tywse or thryse, wyth the blud and the slauer aboout his fiznomy, waz a matter of a goodly releef.

John Houghton, in his Collection for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade,[190] gives a vivid account of the baiting of the bull. He says:

The bull takes great care to watch his enemy, which is a mastiff dog (commonly used to the sport) with a short nose that his teeth may take the better hold; this dog, if right, will creep upon his belly that he may, if possible, get the bull by the nose; which the bull as carefully strives to defend by laying it close to the ground, where his horns are also ready to do what in them lies to toss the dog; and this is the true sport. But if more dogs than one come at once, or they are cowardly and come under his legs, he will, if he can, stamp their guts out. I believe I have seen a dog tossed by a bull thirty, if not forty foot high; and when they are tossed, either higher or lower, the men above strive to catch them on their shoulders, lest the fall might mischief the dogs. They commonly lay sand about that if they fall upon the ground it may be the easier. Notwithstanding this care a great many dogs are killed, more have their limbs broke, and some hold so fast that, by the bull's swinging them, their teeth are often broken out.... The true courage and art is to hold the bull by the nose 'till he roars, which a courageous bull scorns to do.... This is a sport the English much delight in; and not only the baser sort, but the greatest lords and ladies.

[Footnote 190: No. 108, August, 1694. Quoted by J.P. Malcolm, Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London from the Roman Invasion to the Year 1700 (London, 1811), p. 433.]

An attendant upon the Duke of Nexara, who visited England in 1544, wrote the following account of a bear-baiting witnessed in London:

In another part of the city we saw seven bears, some of them of great size. They were led out every day to an enclosure, where being tied with a long rope, large and intrepid dogs are thrown to them, in order that they may bite and make them furious. It is no bad sport to see them fight, and the assaults they give each other. To each of the large bears are matched three or four dogs, which sometimes get the better and sometimes are worsted, for besides the fierceness and great strength of the bears to defend themselves with their teeth, they hug the dogs with their paws so tightly, that, unless the masters came to assist them, they would be strangled by such soft embraces. Into the same place they brought a pony with an ape fastened on its back, and to see the animal kicking amongst the dogs, with the screams of the ape, beholding the curs hanging from the ears and neck of the pony, is very laughable.[191]

[Footnote 191: The original manuscript of this narrative, in Spanish, is preserved in the British Museum. I quote the translation by Frederick Madden, in Archaeologia, XIII, 354-55.]

Orazio Busino, the chaplain of the Venetian Embassy in London, writes in his Anglipotrida (1618):

The dogs are detached from the bear by inserting between the teeth ... certain iron spattles with a wooden handle; whilst they take them off the bull (keeping at a greater distance) with certain flat iron hooks which they apply to the thighs or even to the neck of the dog, whose tail is simultaneously dexterously seized by another of these rufflers. The bull can hardly get at anybody, as he wears a collar round his neck with only fifteen feet of rope, which is fastened to a stake deeply planted in the middle of the theatre. Other rufflers are at hand with long poles to put under the dog so as to break his fall after he has been tossed by the bull; the tips of these [poles] are covered with thick leather to prevent them from disembowelling the dogs. The most spirited stroke is considered to be that of the dog who seizes the bull's lip, clinging to it and pinning the animal for some time; the second best hit is to seize the eyebrows; the third, but far inferior, consists in seizing the bull's ear.[192]