[Footnote 647: William Beeston was the son of the famous actor Christopher Beeston, who was once a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later manager of the Fortune, and finally proprietor of the Cockpit. In 1639 William had been appointed manager of the Cockpit Company. (See pages 358 ff.)]

[Footnote 648: That is, stripped of its benches, stage-hangings, and other appliances for dramatic performances.]

[Footnote 649: The manuscript entry in Stow's Annals. See The Academy, October 28, 1882, p. 314. On the same date the soldiers "pulled down on the inside" also the Phoenix and the Fortune.]

Three years later, however, Beeston, through his agent Theophilus Bird, secured the property from Herne at the reduced price of L408: "John Herne, by indenture dated the five and twentieth day of May, 1652, for L408, to him paid by Theophilus Bird, did assign the premises and all his estate therein in trust for the said William Beeston."[650]

[Footnote 650: Cunningham, The Shakespeare Society's Papers, IV, 103.]

Early in 1660 Beeston, anticipating the return of King Charles, and the reestablishment of the drama, decided to put his building back into condition to serve as a playhouse; and he secured from Herbert, the Master of the Revels, a license to do so.[651] On April 5, 1660, he contracted with two carpenters, Fisher and Silver, "for the rebuilding the premises"; and to secure them he mortgaged the property. The carpenters later swore that they "expended in the same work L329 9s. 4d."[652]

[Footnote 651: Printed in Malone, Variorum, III, 243, and Halliwell-Phillipps, A Collection of Ancient Documents, p. 85. The language clearly indicates that Beeston was to reconvert the building into a theatre.]

[Footnote 652: Cunningham, The Shakespeare Society's Papers, IV, 103.]

The reconstructed playhouse was opened in 1660, probably as early as June, with a performance of The Rump, by Tatham. It was engaged by Sir William Davenant for his company of actors until his "new theatre with scenes" could be erected in Lincoln's Inn Fields.[653] The ubiquitous Pepys often went thither, and in his Diary gives us some interesting accounts of the performances he saw there. On March 2, 1661, he witnessed a revival of Thomas Heywood's Love's Mistress, or The Queen's Masque before a large audience:

After dinner I went to the Theatre [i.e., Killigrew's playhouse] where I found so few people (which is strange, and the reason I did not know) that I went out again; and so to Salisbury Court, where the house as full as could be; and it seems it was a new play, The Queen's Masque, wherein are some good humours: among others a good jeer to the old story of the Siege of Troy, making it to be a common country tale. But above all it was strange to see so little a boy as that was to act Cupid, which is one of the greatest parts in it.

[Footnote 653: Malone, Variorum, III, 257; Halliwell-Phillipps, A Collection of Ancient Documents, p. 27.]

Again, on March 26, he found Salisbury Court crowded:

After dinner Mrs. Pierce and her husband, and I and my wife, to Salisbury Court, where coming late, he and she light of Col. Boone, that made room for them; and I and my wife sat in the pit, and there met with Mr. Lewes and Tom Whitton, and saw The Bondman[654] done to admiration.

[Footnote 654: By Philip Massinger.]

The history of the playhouse during these years falls outside the scope of this volume. Suffice it to say that before Beeston finished paying the carpenters for their work of reconstruction, the great fire of 1666 swept the building out of existence; as Fisher and Silver declared: "The mortgaged premises by the late dreadful fire in London were totally burned down and consumed."[655]

[Footnote 655: The subsequent history of Salisbury Court is traced in the legal documents printed by Cunningham. Beeston lost the property, and Fisher and Silver erected nearer the river a handsome new playhouse, known as "The Duke's Theatre," at an estimated cost of L1000.]



CHAPTER XX

THE COCKPIT-IN-COURT, OR THEATRE ROYAL AT WHITEHALL

On birthdays, holidays, and festive occasions in general the sovereigns of England and the members of the royal family were wont to summon the professional actors to present plays at Court. For the accommodation of the players and of the audience, the larger halls at Hampton, Windsor, Greenwich, St. James, Whitehall, or wherever the sovereign happened to be at the time, were specially fitted up, often at great expense. At one end of the hall was erected a temporary stage equipped with a "music-room," "players' houses of canvas," painted properties, and such other things as were necessary to the actors. In the centre of the hall, on an elevated dais, were provided seats for the royal family, and around and behind the dais, stools for the more distinguished guests; a large part of the audience was allowed to stand on platforms raised in tiers at the rear of the room. Since the plays were almost invariably given at night, the stage was illuminated by special "branches" hung on wires overhead, and carrying many lights. In the accounts of the Office of the Revels one may find interesting records of plays presented in this manner, with the miscellaneous items of expense for making the halls ready.

Usually the Court performances, like the masques, were important, almost official occasions, and many guests, including the members of the diplomatic corps, were invited. To provide accommodation for so numerous an audience, a large room was needed. Hampton Court possessed a splendid room for the purpose in the Great Banqueting Hall, one hundred and six feet in length and forty feet in breadth. But the palace at Whitehall for many years had no room of a similar character. For the performance of a masque there in 1559 the Queen erected a temporary "Banqueting House." Again, in 1572, to entertain the Duke of Montmorency, Ambassador from France, she had a large "Banketting House made at Whitehall," covered with canvas and decorated with ivy and flowers gathered fresh from the fields. An account of the structure may be found in the records of the Office of the Revels. Perhaps, however, the most elaborate and substantial of these "banqueting houses" was that erected in 1581, to entertain the ambassadors from France who came to treat of a marriage between Elizabeth and the Duc d'Anjou. The structure is thus described by Holinshed in his Chronicle:[656]

This year (against the coming of certain commissioners out of France into England), by Her Majesty's appointment, on the sixth and twentieth day of March, in the morning (being Easter Day), a Banqueting House was begun at Westminster, on the south-west side of Her Majesty's palace of Whitehall, made in manner and form of a long square, three hundred thirty and two foot in measure about; thirty principals made of great masts, being forty foot in length apiece, standing upright; between every one of these masts ten foot asunder and more. The walls of this house were closed with canvas, and painted all the outsides of the same most artificially, with a work called rustic, much like stone. This house had two hundred ninety and two lights of glass. The sides within the same house was made with ten heights of degrees for people to stand upon; and in the top of this house was wrought most cunningly upon canvas works of ivy and holly, with pendants made of wicker rods, garnished with bay, rue, and all manner of strange flowers garnished with spangles of gold; as also beautified with hanging toseans made of holly and ivy, with all manner of strange fruits, as pomegranates, oranges, pompions, cucumbers, grapes, carrots, with such other like, spangled with gold, and most richly hanged. Betwixt these works of bays and ivy were great spaces of canvas, which was most cunningly painted, the clouds with stars, the sun and sun-beams, with diverse other coats of sundry sorts belonging to the Queen's Majesty, most richly garnished with gold. There were of all manner of persons working on this house to the number of three hundred seventy and five: two men had mischances, the one broke his leg, and so did the other. This house was made in three weeks and three days, and was ended the eighteenth day of April, and cost one thousand seven hundred forty and four pounds, nineteen shillings, and od mony, as I was credibly informed by the worshipful master Thomas Grave, surveyor unto Her Majesty's works, who served and gave order for the same.

[Footnote 656: Edition of 1808, IV, 434. See also Stow's Chronicle, under the year 1581.]

Although built in such a short time, and of such flimsy material, this expensive Banqueting House seems to have been allowed to stand, and to have been used thereafter for masques and plays. Thus, when King James came to the throne, he ordered plays to be given there in November, 1604. We find the following entry in the Treasurer's accounts:

For making ready the Banqueting House at Whitehall for the King's Majesty against the plays, by the space of four days ... 78s. 7d.

And the accounts of the Revels' Office inform us:

Hallomas Day, being the first of November, a play in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, called The Moor of Venice.

Apparently, however, the King was not pleased with the Banqueting House as a place for dramatic performances, for he promptly ordered the Great Hall of the palace—a room approximately ninety feet in length and forty feet in breadth[657]—to be made ready for the next play:

For making ready the Great Chamber at Whitehall for the King's Majesty to see the play, by the space of two days ... 39s. 4d.

[Footnote 657: This had once already, on Shrove Tuesday, 1604, been used for a play. The situation and ground-plan of the "Great Hall" are clearly shown in Fisher's Survey of the palace, made about 1670, and engraved by Vertue, 1747.]

The work was completed with dispatch, for on the Sunday following the performance of Othello in the Banqueting House, The Merry Wives of Windsor was acted in the Great Hall. The next play to be given at Court was also presented in the same room:

On St. Stephen's Night, in the Hall, a play called Measure for Measure.

And from this time on the Great Hall was the usual place for Court performances. The abandonment of the Banqueting House was probably due to the facts that the Hall was smaller in size, could be more easily heated in the winter, and was in general better adapted to dramatic performances. Possibly the change was due also to the decayed condition of the old structure and to preparations for its removal. Stow, in his Annals under the date of 1607, writes:

The last year the King pulled down the old, rotten, slight-builded Banqueting House at Whitehall, and new-builded the same this year very strong and stately, being every way larger than the first.[658]

[Footnote 658: Stow's Annals, continued by Edmund Howes (1631), p. 891.]

This new Banqueting House was completed in the early part of 1608. John Chamberlain writes to Sir Dudley Carleton on January 5, 1608: "The masque goes forward at Court for Twelfth Day, tho' I doubt the New Room will be scant ready."[659] Thereafter the Banqueting House, "every way larger than the first," was regularly used for the presentation of masques. But it was rarely if ever used for plays. Throughout the reign of James, the ordinary place for dramatic performances, as has been observed, was the Great Hall.

[Footnote 659: John Nichols, The Progresses of James, II, 162.]

On January 12, 1619, as a result of negligence during the preparations for a masque, the Banqueting House caught fire and was burned to the ground. The Reverend Thomas Lorkin writes to Sir Thomas Puckering on January 19, 1619:

The unhappy accident that chanced at Whitehall last week by fire you cannot but have heard of; but haply not the manner how, which was this. A joiner was appointed to mend some things that were out of order in the device of the masque, which the King meant to have repeated at Shrovetide, who, having kindled a fire upon a false hearth to heat his glue-pot, the force thereof pierced soon, it seems, the single brick, and in a short time that he absented himself upon some occasion, fastened upon the basis, which was of dry deal board, underneath; which suddenly conceiving flame, gave fire to the device of the masque, all of oiled paper, and dry fir, etc. And so, in a moment, disposed itself among the rest of that combustible matter that it was past any man's approach before it was almost discovered. Two hours begun and ended that woful sight.



Inigo Jones, who had dreamed of a magnificent palace at Whitehall, and who had drawn elaborate plans for a royal residence which should surpass anything in Europe, now took charge of building a new Banqueting House as a first step in the realization of his scheme. The noble structure which he erected is to-day one of his chief monuments, and the sole relic of the once famous royal palace. It was completed in the spring of 1622; but, as in the case of its predecessor, it was not commonly used for dramatic entertainments. Though masques might be given there, the regular place for plays continued to be the Great Hall.

In the meanwhile, however, there had been developed at Court the custom of having small private performances in the Cockpit, in addition to the more elaborate performances in the Great Hall. Since this ultimately led to the establishment of a theatre royal, known as "The Cockpit-in-Court," it will be necessary to trace in some detail the history of that structure.

The palace of Whitehall, anciently called York House, and the home of thirty successive Archbishops of York, was seized by King Henry VIII at the fall of Wolsey and converted into a royal residence.[660] The new proprietor at once made improvements after his own taste, among which were tennis-courts, bowling-alleys, and an amphitheatre for the "royal sport" of cock-fighting. In Stow's description of the palace we read:

On the right hand be diverse fair tennis courts, bowling alleys, and a Cockpit, all built by King Henry the Eight.

[Footnote 660: Shakespeare writes (Henry VIII, IV, i, 94-97):

Sir you Must no more call it York-place, that is past; For since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost: 'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall.]

Strype, in his edition of Stow's Survey (1720), adds the information that the Cockpit was made "out of certain old tenements."[661] It is pictured in Agas's Map of London (1570), and more clearly in Faithorne's Map (see page 390), printed in 1658, but apparently representing the city at an earlier date.

[Footnote 661: Book VI, page 6.]

During the reign of Elizabeth the Cockpit, so far as I can ascertain, was never used for plays. In the voluminous documents relating to the Office of the Revels there is only one reference to the building: in 1572 flowers were temporarily stored there that were to be used for decking the "Banketting House."

It was during the reign of King James that the Cockpit began to be used for dramatic representations. John Chamberlain writes from London to Sir Ralph Winwood, December 18, 1604: "Here is great provision for Cockpit to entertain him [the King] at home, and of masques and revels against the marriage of Sir Herbert and Lady Susan Vere."[662] Since, however, King James was very fond of cock-fighting, it may be that Chamberlain was referring to that royal entertainment rather than to plays. The small Cockpit was certainly a very unusual place for the formal presentation of plays before His Majesty and the Court.

[Footnote 662: Winwood State Papers (1725), II, 41.]

But the young Prince Henry, whose official residence was in St. James's Palace, often had private or semi-private performances of plays in the Cockpit. In the rolls of the expenses of the Prince we find the following records:[663]

For making ready the Cockpit four several times for plays, by the space of four days, in the month of December, 1610, L2 10s. 8d.

For making ready the Cockpit for plays two several times, by the space of four days, in the months of January and February, 1611, 70s. 8d.

For making ready the Cockpit for a play, by the space of two days, in the month of December, 1611, 30s. 4d.

[Footnote 663: See Cunningham, Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels, pp. xiii-xiv.]

The building obviously, was devoted for the most part to other purposes, and had to be "made ready" for plays at a considerable expense. Nor was the Prince the only one who took advantage of its small amphitheatre. John Chamberlain, in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton on September 22, 1612, describing the reception accorded to the Count Palatine by the Lady Elizabeth, writes: "On Tuesday she sent to invite him as he sat at supper to a play of her own servants in the Cockpit."[664]

[Footnote 664: John Nichols, The Progresses of James, II, 466.]

It is clear, then, that at times throughout the reign of James dramatic performances were given in the Cockpit; but the auditorium was small, and the performances must have been of a semi-private nature. The important Court performances, to which many guests were invited, were held in the Great Hall.

In the reign of the next sovereign, however, a change came about. In the year 1632 or 1633, as well as I am able to judge with the evidence at command, King Charles reconstructed the old Cockpit into a "new theatre at Whitehall," which from henceforth was almost exclusively used for Court performances. The opening of this "new theatre royal" is celebrated by a Speech from the pen of Thomas Heywood:

A Speech Spoken to Their Two Excellent Majesties at the First Play Play'd by the Queen's Servants in the New Theatre at Whitehall.

When Greece, the chief priority might claim For arts and arms, and held the eminent name Of Monarchy, they erected divers places, Some to the Muses, others to the Graces, Where actors strove, and poets did devise, With tongue and pen to please the ears and eyes Of Princely auditors. The time was, when To hear the rapture of one poet's pen A Theatre hath been built.

By the Fates' doom, When th' Empire was removed from thence to Rome, The Potent Caesars had their circi, and Large amphitheatres, in which might stand And sit full fourscore thousand, all in view And touch of voice. This great Augustus knew, Nay Rome its wealth and potency enjoyed, Till by the barbarous Goths these were destroy'd.

But may this structure last, and you be seen Here a spectator, with your princely Queen, In your old age, as in your flourishing prime, To outstrip Augustus both in fame and time.

The exact date of this Speech is not given, but it was printed[665] in 1637 along with "The Prologue to the Famous Tragedy of The Rich Jew of Malta, as it Was Played Before the King and Queen in His Majesty's Theatre at Whitehall"; and this Prologue Heywood had already published with the play itself in 1633. He dedicated the play to Mr. Thomas Hammon, saying, "I had no better a New-Year's gift to present you with." Apparently, then, the play had been acted at Court shortly before New Year's, 1633; and this sets a forward date to Heywood's Speech. Other evidence combines with this to show that "His Majesty's Theatre at Whitehall" was "new" at the Christmas season of 1632-33.

[Footnote 665: See The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood (1874), VI, 339.]

In erecting this, the first "theatre royal," King Charles would naturally call for the aid of the great Court architect Inigo Jones,[666] and by good luck we have preserved for us Jones's original sketches for the little playhouse (see page 396). These were discovered a few years ago by Mr. Hamilton Bell in the Library of Worcester College (where many valuable relics of the great architect are stored), and printed in The Architectural Record of New York, March, 1913. Mr. Bell accompanied the plans with a valuable discussion, but he was unable to discover their purpose. He writes:

We have still no clue as to what purpose this curiously anomalous and most interesting structure was to serve—whether the plan was ever carried out, or whether it remained part of a lordly pleasure-house which its prolific designer planned for the delectation of his own soul.

[Footnote 666: Whether he merely made over the old Cockpit which Henry VIII had constructed "out of certain old tenements," or erected an entirely new building, I have not been able to ascertain. Heywood's Speech indicates a "new" and "lasting" structure.]

That the plan actually was carried out, at least in part, is shown by a sketch of the Whitehall buildings made by John Fisher at some date before 1670, and engraved by Vertue in 1747, (see page 398).[667] Here, in the northeast corner of the palace, we find a little theatre, labeled "The Cockpit." Its identity with the building sketched by Inigo Jones is obvious at a glance; even the exterior measurements, which are ascertainable from the scales of feet given on the two plans, are the same.

[Footnote 667: Vertue conservatively dates the survey "about 1680"; but the names of the occupants of the various parts of the palace show that it was drawn before 1670, and nearer 1660 than 1680.]



Mr. Bell describes the plan he discovered as follows:[668]

It represents within a square building, windowed on three sides and on one seemingly attached to another building, an auditorium occupying five sides of an octagon, on the floor of which are shown the benches of a pit, or the steps, five in number, on which they could be set. These are curiously arranged at an angle of forty-five degrees on either side of a central aisle, so that the spectators occupying them could never have directly faced the stage. Surrounding this pit on five sides is a balcony ten feet deep, with, it would seem, two rows of benches on four of its sides; the fifth side in the centre, directly opposite the stage, being partitioned off into a room or box, in the middle of which is indicated a platform about five feet by seven, presumably for the Royal State. Three steps descend from this box to the centre aisle of the pit. To the left of and behind this royal box appears another enclosure or box, partitioned off from the rest of the balcony.

The staircases of access to this auditorium are clearly indicated; one small door at the rear of the salle with its own private stairway, communicating with the adjoining building, opens directly into the royal box; as in the Royal Opera House in Berlin to-day.

There is another door, with a triangular lobby, into the rear of the left-hand balcony. Two windows are shown on each side of the house, opening directly into the theatre from the outer air.

The stage runs clear across the width of the pit, about thirty-five feet, projecting in an "apron" or avant scene five feet beyond the proscenium wall, and is surrounded on the three outward sides by a low railing of classic design about eighteen inches in height, just as in many Elizabethan playhouses.

If one may trust an elevation of the stage, drawn on the same sheet to twice the scale of the general plan, the stage was four feet six inches above the floor of the pit. This elevation exhibits the surprising feature of a classic facade, Palladian in treatment, on the stage of what so far we have regarded as a late modification of a playhouse of Shakespeare's day. Evidently Inigo Jones contemplated the erection of a permanent architectural proscenium, as the ancients called it, of the type, though far more modest, both in scale and ornamentation, of Palladio's Theatro Olimpico at Vicenza, which we know he visited in about 1600, some twenty years after its erection. This proscenium, given in plan and elevation, shows a semi-circular structure with a radius of fifteen feet, two stories in height, of the Corinthian or Composite order. In the lower story are five doorways, the centre of which is a large archway flanked by pedestals, on which are inscribed in Greek characters, Melpomene—Thalia; over these and over the smaller doors are tablets.

The second story contains between its lighter engaged columns, over the four side doors, niches with corbels below, destined to carry statues as their inscribed bases indicate. So far as these inscriptions are legible,—the clearest reading "phocles," probably Sophocles,—these were to represent Greek dramatists, most likely AEschylus, Euripides, Sophocles and Aristophanes.

The curved pediment of the central archway runs up into this story and is broken in the middle by a tablet bearing the inscription "Prodesse et Delectare," which is flanked by two reclining genii holding garlands.

Above these are two busts on brackets, Thespis and Epicurus, or possibly Epicharmus. The space directly above this pediment is occupied by a window-like opening five by four feet, the traditional Elizabethan music-room, in all probability, which, Mr. W.J. Lawrence has shown us, occupied this position both in Shakespeare's day and for some time after the Restoration; an arrangement which was revived by Mr. Steele Mackaye in the Madison Square Theatre, and originally in the first little Lyceum, New York, both now pulled down. The pyramidal pediment above this opening projects above the upper cornice into a coved ceiling, which would appear from the rendering of the drawing to form an apse above the semi-circular stage. Behind the proscenium is a large space with staircases of approach, two windows at the rear, and apparently a fireplace for the comfort of the waiting players. Communication with the front of the house is provided by a door in the proscenium wall opening into the stage door lobby, whence the outside of the building may be reached.

There is no indication of galleries, unless some marks on the angles of the front wall of the balcony may be interpreted without too much license into the footings of piers or posts to carry one; the total interior height shown in the elevation from what I have assumed to be the floor of the pit to the ceiling being only twenty-eight feet, there would hardly have been room for more than one. The only staircases which could have served it are at the rear of the building in the corners behind the stage wall....

The general dimensions would appear to be:

Total width of the auditorium 58 ft. Total width of the pit 36 ft. Total width of the front stage or "apron" 35 ft. Total depth of the stage from the railing to the centre of the proscenium 16 ft. The entire building is 58 feet square inside, cut to an octagon of 28 feet each side. Height from floor to ceiling 28 ft. Height from stage to ceiling about 23 ft. 6 in. The lower order of the proscenium 10 ft. 6 in. The upper order of the proscenium 9 ft. 6 in.

The scale on the drawing may not be absolutely correct, as measured by it the side doors of the proscenium are only five feet high and two feet nine inches wide: this, however, may be an error in the drawing, since we have it on very good authority that Inigo Jones designed without the use of a scale, proportioning his various members by his exquisitely critical eye alone, subsequently adding the dimensions in writing.

[Footnote 668: Reprinted here by the kind permission of Mr. Bell and the editors of The Architectural Record.]

I record below some of the references to the Cockpit which I have gathered from the Herbert Manuscript and the Office-Books of the Lord Chamberlain. The earliest payment for plays there, it will be observed, is dated March 16, 1633. Abundant evidence shows that the actors gave their performance in the Cockpit at night without interfering with their regular afternoon performance at their playhouses, and for their pains received the sum of L10. If, however, for any reason they "lost their day" at their house they were paid L20.

1633. March 16. Warrant to pay L270 to John Lowen, Joseph Taylor, and Eilliard Swanston, His Majesty's Comedians, for plays by them acted before His Majesty, viz.—L20 for the rehearsal of one at the Cockpit, by which means they lost their afternoon at their house....[669]

1634. Bussy d'Amboise was played by the King's Players on Easter-Monday night, at the Cockpit-in-Court.[670]

1634. The Pastorall was played by the King's Players on Easter-Tuesday night, at the Cockpit-in-Court.[671]

1635. 10 May. A warrant for L30 unto Mons. Josias Floridor, for himself and the rest of the French players for three plays acted by them at the Cockpit.[672]

1635. 10 Decemr.—A warrant for L100 to the Prince's Comedians,—viz. L60 for three plays acted at Hampton Court, at L20 for each play, in September and October, 1634. And L40 for four plays at Whitehall and [query "at"] the Cockpit in January, February, and May following, at L10 for each play.[673]

1636. The first and second part of Arviragus and Philicia were acted at the Cockpit before the King and Queen, the Prince, and Prince Elector, the 18 and 19 April, 1636, being Monday and Tuesday in Easter week.[674]

[Footnote 669: Lord Chamberlain's Office-Book, C.C. Stopes, "Shakespeare's Fellows and Followers," Shakespeare Jahrbuch, XLVI, 96.]

[Footnote 670: Herbert MS., Malone, Variorum, III, 237.]

[Footnote 671: Herbert MS., Malone, Variorum, III, 237.]

[Footnote 672: Lord Chamberlain's Office-Book, Chalmers's Apology, p. 508.]

[Footnote 673: Ibid., p. 509.]

[Footnote 674: The Herbert MS., Malone, Variorum, III, 238.]

Other similar allusions to performance in the Cockpit might be cited from the Court records. One more will suffice—the most interesting of all, since it shows how frequently the little theatre was employed for the entertainment of the royal family. It is a bill presented by the Blackfriars Company, the King's Men, for Court performances during the year 1637. This bill was discovered and reproduced in facsimile by George R. Wright, F.S.A., in The Journal of the British Archaeological Association for 1860; but it was wholly misunderstood by its discoverer, who regarded it as drawn up by the company of players that "performed at the Cockpit in Drury Lane." He was indeed somewhat puzzled by the reference to the Blackfriars Playhouse, but met the difficulty by saying: "There can be little doubt that the last-named theatre was lent for the occasion to the Cockpit Company," although he suggests no reason for this strange borrowing of a theatre by a troupe that possessed a house of its own, and much nearer the Court, too. It did not even occur to him, it seems, to inquire how the Cockpit Company secured the plays which we know belonged to Shakespeare's old company. Because of these obvious difficulties scholars have looked upon the document with suspicion, and apparently have treated it as a forgery.[675] But that it is genuine is indicated by the history of "The Cockpit-in-Court" as sketched above, and is proved beyond any question by the fact that the Office-Book of the Lord Chamberlain shows that the bill was paid:

12th March 1638 {9}.—Forasmuch as His Majesty's Servants, the company at the Blackfriars, have by special command, at divers times within the space of this present year 1638, acted 24 plays before His Majesty, six whereof have been performed at Hampton-court and Richmond, by means whereof they were not only at the loss of their day at home, but at extraordinary charges by traveling and carriage of their goods, in consideration whereof they are to have L20 apiece for those plays, and L10 apiece for the other 18 acted at Whitehall, which in the whole amounted to the sum of L300.—These are therefore to pray and require you out of His Majesty's treasure in your charge to pay....[676]

[Footnote 675: Fleay in his elaborate studies of performances at Court ignores it entirely, as do subsequent scholars.]

[Footnote 676: Chalmers, Apology, p. 510.]

A photographic facsimile of this interesting document may be seen in The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, already referred to; but for the convenience of those who do not read Elizabethan script with ease, I have reproduced it in type facsimile on page 404.



before the king & queene this yeare of our lord 1638

At the Cocpit the 26th of march The lost ladie

At the Cocpit the 27th of march Damboyes

At the Cocpit the 3d of Aprill Aglaura

At the blackfryers the 23 of Aprill for the queene the vnfortunate lou[ers]

At the Cocpit the 29th of may the princes berthnight ould Castel

At the Cocpit the last of may agayne the vnfortunate louers

At Sumerset-house the 10th of July & our day

— lost at our house mr Carlels play the first part of the pasionate louers

— At Hamton Court the 30th of September The vnfortunate louer[s]

— At Richmount the 6th of november for the ladie } The mery divell maries berthnight & the day lost at our house } of Edmonto[n]

At the Cocpit the 8th of november The fox

At the Cocpit the 13th of november Ceaser

At the Cocpit the 15th of november The mery wifes of winser

At the Cocpit the 20th of november The fayre favorett

At the Cocpit the 22th of november Chances

At the Cocpit the 27th of november The Costome of the C[ountry]

At the Cocpit the 29th of november The northen las

At the Cocpit the 6th of desember The spanish Curatt

At the Cocpit the 11th of desember agayne The fayre favorett

At the Cocpit the 18th of desember m Carlels play agayne the first part of The pasionate louers

At the Cocpit the 20th of desember the 2d part of The pasionate louers

At the Cocpit the 27 of desember the 2d part agayne of the pasionate louers

— At Richmount the 28 of desember the ladie } Elsabeths berthnight & our day lost at our house } The northen las

— At Richmount on newyeares day } and our day lost at our house } beggers bush

— At Richmount the 7th of Janeuarye } and our day lost at our house } The spanish Cura[tt]]

The check-marks at the left were probably made by the clerk in the Chamberlain's office to ascertain how many times the players "lost their day" at their house, and hence were entitled to L20 in payment. For the play given "at the blackfriars the 23 of Aprill for the queene" (presumably the general public was excluded) only the usual L10 was allowed.

With the approach of the civil war, the Cockpit, like the public theatres, suffered an eclipse. Sir Henry Herbert writes: "On Twelfth Night, 1642, the Prince had a play called The Scornful Lady at the Cockpit; but the King and Queen were not there, and it was the only play acted at court in the whole Christmas."[677] During the dark days that followed we hear nothing of plays in the Cockpit. Later Cromwell himself occupied this section of the palace, and naturally saw to it that no dramatic exhibitions were held there. But at the Restoration "the Prince," now become the King, could have his plays again; and he did not wait long. On November 20, 1660, Edward Gower wrote to Sir Richard Leveson: "Yesternight the King, Queen, Princess, etc., supped at the Duke d'Albemarle's, where they had The Silent Woman acted in the Cockpit."[678] From this time on the theatre royal was in constant use for the entertainment of the Court.

[Footnote 677: Herbert MS., Malone, Variorum, III, 241.]

[Footnote 678: Historical Manuscripts Commission, Fifth Report, p. 200. Pepys, under the date November 20, 1660, gives an anecdote about the King's behavior on this occasion.]

Samuel Pepys, as he rose in the world, became a frequent visitor there.[679] In the absence of other descriptions of the building, I subjoin a few of the entries from his Diary. Under the date of October 2, 1662, he writes:

At night by coach towards Whitehall, took up Mr. Moore and set him at my Lord's, and myself, hearing that there was a play at the Cockpit (and my Lord Sandwich, who came to town last night, at it), I do go thither, and by very great fortune did follow four or five gentlemen who were carried to a little private door in a wall, and so crept through a narrow place and come into one of the boxes next the King's, but so as I could not see the King or Queen, but many of the fine ladies, who yet are really not so handsome generally as I used to take them to be, but that they are finely dressed. Here we saw The Cardinal,[680] a tragedy I had never seen before, nor is there any great matter in it. The company that came in with me into the box were all Frenchmen that could speak no English, but Lord! what sport they made to ask a pretty lady that they got among them that understood both French and English to make her tell them what the actors said.

[Footnote 679: He first "got in" on April 20, 1661, "by the favour of one Mr. Bowman." John Evelyn also visited the Cockpit; see his Diary, January 16 and February 11, 1662.]

[Footnote 680: By James Shirley, licensed 1641.]

The next time he went to the Cockpit, on November 17, 1662, he did not have to creep in by stealth. He writes:

At Whitehall by appointment, Mr. Crew carried my wife and I to the Cockpit, and we had excellent places, and saw the King, Queen, Duke of Monmouth, his son, and my Lady Castlemaine, and all the fine ladies; and The Scornful Lady, well performed. They had done by eleven o'clock.

The fine ladies, as usual, made a deep impression on him, as did the "greatness and gallantry" of the audience. On December 1, 1662, he writes:

This done we broke up, and I to the Cockpit, with much crowding and waiting, where I saw The Valiant Cid[681] acted, a play I have read with great delight, but is a most dull thing acted, which I never understood before, there being no pleasure in it, though done by Betterton and by Ianthe,[682] and another fine wench that is come in the room of Roxalana; nor did the King or Queen once smile all the whole play, nor any of the company seem to take any pleasure but what was in the greatness and gallantry of the company. Thence ... home, and got thither by 12 o'clock, knocked up my boy, and put myself to bed.

[Footnote 681: By Corneille.]

[Footnote 682: Mrs. Betterton.]



Two entries, from an entirely different source, must suffice for this history of the Cockpit. In the Paper-Office Chalmers discovered a record of the following payments, made in 1667:

To the Keeper of the theatre at Whitehall, L30. To the same for Keeping clean that place, p. ann. L6.[683]

[Footnote 683: Chalmers, Apology, p. 530. Cunningham says, in his Handbook of London: "I find in the records of the Audit Office a payment of L30 per annum 'to the Keeper of our Playhouse called the Cockpit in St. James Park'"; but he does not state the year in which the payment was made.]

And in the Lord Chamberlain's Accounts is preserved the following warrant:

1674, March 27. Warrant to deliver to Monsieur Grabu, or to such as he shall appoint, such of the scenes remaining in the theatre at Whitehall as shall be useful for the French Opera at the theatre in Bridges Street, and the said Monsieur to return them again safely after 14 days' time to the theatre at Whitehall.[684]

[Footnote 684: I quote from W.J. Lawrence, The Elizabethan Playhouse (First Series), p. 144.]

What became of the theatre at Whitehall I have not been able to ascertain.[685] Presumably, after the fire of January, 1698, which destroyed the greater part of the palace and drove the royal family to seek quarters elsewhere, the building along with the rest of the Cockpit section was made over into the Privy Council offices.

[Footnote 685: The reasons why the Cockpit at Whitehall has remained so long in obscurity (its history is here attempted for the first time) are obvious. Some scholars have confused it with the public playhouse of the same name, a confusion which persons in the days of Charles avoided by invariably saying "The Cockpit in Drury Lane." Other scholars have confused it with the residential section of Whitehall which bore the same name. During the reign of James several large buildings which had been erected either on the site of the old cockpit of Henry VIII, or around it, were converted into lodgings for members of the royal family or favorites of the King, and were commonly referred to as "the Cockpit." Other scholars have assumed that all plays during the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles were given either in the Banqueting House or in the Great Hall. Finally, still other scholars (e.g., Sir Sidney Lee, in Shakespeare's England, 1916) have confused the Cockpit at Whitehall with the Royal Cockpit in St. James's Park. Exactly when the latter was built I have not been able to discover, but it was probably erected near the close of the seventeenth century. It stood at the end of Dartmouth Street, adjacent to Birdcage Walk, but not in the Park itself. John Strype, in his edition of Stow's Survey (1720), bk. VI, p. 64, says of Dartmouth Street: "And here is a very fine Cockpit, called the King's Cockpit, well resorted unto." A picture of the building is given by Strype on page 62, and a still better picture may be found in J.T. Smith's The Antiquities of Westminster. The Royal Cockpit in Dartmouth Street survived until 1816, when it was torn down. Hogarth, in his famous representation of a cock-fight, shows its interior as circular, and as embellished with the royal coat of arms. Another interesting picture of the interior will be found in Ackermann's The Microcosm of London (1808). It is needless to add that this building had nothing whatever to do with the theatre royal of the days of King Charles.]



CHAPTER XXI

MISCELLANEOUS

I

WOLF'S THEATRE IN NIGHTINGALE LANE, NEAR EAST SMITHFIELD

In Jeaffreson's Middlesex County Records (I, 260), we find the following entry, dated April 1, 1600:

1 April, 42 Elizabeth.—Recognizance, taken before Sir John Peyton knt., Lieutenant of the Tower of London, and Thomas Fowler, Tobias Woode, Edward Vaghan and Henry Thoresby esqs., Justices of the Peace, of John Wolf, of Eastsmithfield, co. Midd., stationer, in the sum of forty pounds; The condition of the recognizance being "that, whereas the above-bounden John Wolf hath begun to erect and build a playhouse in Nightingale Lane near East Smithfield aforesaid, contrary to Her Majesty's proclamation and orders set down in Her Highness's Court of Starchamber. If therefore the said John Wolf do not proceed any further in building or erecting of the same playhouse, unless he shall procure sufficient warrant from the Rt. Honourable the Lords of Her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council for further ... then this recognizance to be void, or else to remain in full force."

The only stationer in London named John Wolf was the printer and publisher who at this time had his shop in Pope's Head Alley, Lombard Street. For several reasons he is well known to bibliographers; and his strong personality and tireless energy might easily have led him into the field of the theatre. For many years he was a member of the Fishmongers' Company, to which also, in all probability, his father had belonged. After a ten years' apprenticeship with the eminent printer, John Day, he spent several years abroad "gadding from country to country," but learning the printing trade from the best establishments on the Continent. His longest stay was in Italy, where he was connected with the printing-office of the Giunti, and also, it seems, of Gabriel Giolito. In 1576 he printed two Rappresentazioni, "ad instanzia di Giovanni Vuolfio, Inglese." About the year 1579 he established himself in London (where he was dubbed by his fellows "Machiavel"), and began an energetic warfare on the monopolies secured by certain favored printers. The fact that he was for a time "committed to the Clink" failed to deter him. We are told that he "affirmed openly in the Stationers' Hall that it was lawful for all men to print all lawful books, what commandment soever Her Majesty gave to the contrary." And being "admonished that he, being but one, so mean a man, should not presume to contrary Her Highness' government: 'Tush,' said he, 'Luther was but one man, and reformed all the world for religion, and I am that one man that must and will reform the government in this trade.'" The courage and energy here revealed characterized his entire life. In 1583 he was admitted a freeman of the Company of Stationers. In 1593 he was elected Printer to the City. In the spring of 1600 he was in serious difficulties with the authorities over the printing of John Hayward's Life and Raigne of King Henrie IV, and was forced to spend two weeks in jail. He died in 1601.[686]

[Footnote 686: For the life of John Wolf see the following: Edward Arber, A Transcript of the Stationers' Registers, especially II, 779-93; The Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1598-1601, pp. 405, 449, 450; A. Gerber, All of the Five Fictitious Italian Editions, etc. (in Modern Language Notes, XXII (1907), 2, 129, 201); H.R. Plomer, An Examination of Some Existing Copies of Hayward's "Life and Raigne of King Henrie IV" (in The Library, N.S., III (1902), 13); R.B. McKerrow, A Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers ... 1557-1640; S. Bongi, Annali di Gabriel Giolito de' Ferrari.]

If this "John Wolf, stationer," be the man who started to erect a playhouse in East Smithfield, it is to be regretted that we do not know more about the causes which led him into the undertaking.

II

THE PROJECTED "AMPHITHEATRE"

In 1620 John Cotton, John Williams, and Thomas Dixon[687] secured from King James a license to build an amphitheatre[688] "intended principally for martiall exercises, and extraordinary shows and solemnities for ambassadors, and persons of honor and quality," with the power granted to the owners to order "a cessation from other shows and sports, for one day in a month only, upon fourteen days' warning."

[Footnote 687: Of these men nothing is known; something, however, may be inferred from the following entries in Sir Henry Herbert's Office-Book: "On the 20th August, 1623, a license gratis, to John Williams and four others, to make show of an Elephant, for a year; on the 5th of September to make show of a live Beaver; on the 9th of June, 1638, to make show of an outlandish creature, called a Possum." (George Chalmers, Supplemental Apology, p. 208.)]

[Footnote 688: The place is not indicated, but it was probably outside the city.]

But for some reason the King suddenly changed his mind, and on September 29, 1620, he addressed a letter to the Privy Council directing them to cancel the license:[689]

Right trusty and right well-beloved Cousins and Councellors, and right trusty and well-beloved Councellors, we greet you well. Whereas at the humble suit of our servants John Cotton, John Williams, and Thomas Dixon, and in recompence of their services, we have been pleased to license them to build an Amphitheatre, which hath passed our Signet and is stayed at our Privy Seal; and finding therein contained some such words and clauses, as may, in some constructions, seem to give them greater liberty both in point of building and using of exercises than is any way to be permitted, or was ever by us intended, we have thought fit to command and give authority unto you, or any four of you, to cause that already passed to be cancelled, and to give order unto our Solicitor General for the drawing up of a new warrant for our signature to the same parties, according to such directions and reservations as herewith we send you. Wherein we are more particular, both in the affirmative and the negative, to the end that, as on one side we would have nothing pass us to remain upon record which either for the form might not become us or for the substance might cross our many proclamations (pursued with good success) for buildings, or, on the other side, might give them cause to importune us after they had been at charges; to which end we wish that you call them before you and let them know our pleasure and resolution therein.

[Footnote 689: See State Papers, Domestic, 1619-1623, p. 181. I have quoted the letter from Collier, The History of English Dramatic Poetry (1879), I, 408.]

Accordingly the license was canceled, and no new license was issued.

In 1626, however, John Williams and Thomas Dixon (what had become of John Cotton we do not know) made an attempt to secure a license from King Charles, then newly come to the throne, to erect an amphitheatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Apparently they so worded the proposed grant as to authorize them to present in their amphitheatre not only spectacles, but dramatic performances and animal-baitings as well, with the power to restrain all other places of amusement for one day in each week, on giving two days' warning.

A "bill" to this effect was drawn up and submitted to Thomas Coventry, the Lord Keeper, who examined it hastily, and dispatched it to Lord Conway with the following letter:[690]

My very good Lord,—I have perused this Bill, and do call to mind that about three or four years past when I was Attorney General, a patent for an Amphitheatre was in hand to have passed; but upon this sudden, without search of my papers, I cannot give your lordship any account of the true cause wherefore it did not pass, nor whether that and this do vary in substance: neither am I apt upon a sudden to take impertinent exceptions to anything that is to pass, much less to a thing that is recommended by so good a friend. But if upon perusal of my papers which I had while I was Attorney, or upon more serious thoughts, I shall observe anything worthy to be represented to His Majesty, or to the Council, I shall then acquaint your lordship; and in the meantime I would be loath to be the author of a motion to His Majesty to stay it: but if you find His Majesty at fitting leisure, to move him that he will give leave to think of it in this sort as I have written, it may do well; and I assure your lordship, unless I find matter of more consequence than I observe on this sudden, it is not like to be stayed. And so I rest your lordship's very assured to do you service,

THO. COVENTRYE, CH.

CANBURY, 12 August, 1626.

[Footnote 690: Collier, op. cit., I, 443.]

Apparently some very influential person was urging the passage of the bill. But the scheme soon evoked the bitter opposition of the various troupes of players, and of the owners of the various theatres and other places of amusement. An echo of the quarrel is found in Marmion's Holland's Leaguer, II, iii:

Twill dead all my device in making matches, My plots of architecture, and erecting New amphitheatres to draw custom From playhouses once a week, and so pull A curse upon my head from the poor scoundrels.[691]

[Footnote 691: The Dramatic Works of Shackerley Marmion, in Dramatists of the Restoration, p. 37. Fleay (A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, II, 66) suggests that the impostors Agurtes and Autolichus are meant to satirize Williams and Dixon respectively.]

The "poor scoundrels"—i.e., the players—seem to have caused the authorities to examine the bill more closely; and on September 28, 1626, the Lord Keeper sent to Lord Conway a second letter in which he condemned the measure in strong terms:[692]

My Lord,—According to His Majesty's good pleasure, which I received from your lordship, I have considered of the grant desired by John Williams and Thomas Dixon for building an Amphitheatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields; and comparing it with that which was propounded in King James his time, do find much difference between them: for that former was intended principally for martiall exercises, and extraordinary shows, and solemnities for ambassadors and persons of honor and quality, with a cessation from other shows and sports for one day in a month only, upon 14 days' warning: whereas by this new grant I see little probability of anything to be used but common plays, or ordinary sports now used or showed at the Bear Garden or the common playhouses about London, for all sorts of beholders, with a restraint to all other plays and shows for one day in the week upon two days' warning: with liberty to erect their buildings in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where there are too many buildings already; and which place in the late King's time upon a petition exhibited by the Prince's comedians for setting up a playhouse there, was certified by eleven Justices of Peace under their hands to be very inconvenient. And therefore, not holding this new grant fit to pass, as being no other in effect but to translate the playhouses and Bear Garden from the Bankside to a place much more unfit, I thought fit to give your lordship these reasons for it; wherewithal you may please to acquaint His Majesty, if there shall be cause. And so remain your lordship's very assured friend to do you service,

THO. COVENTRYE.

CANBURY, 28 Sept., 1626. LO. CONWAY.

[Footnote 692: I quote the letter from Collier, The History of English Dramatic Poetry (1879), I, 444.]

On the letter Lord Conway has written the indorsement: "That it is unfit the grant for the Amphitheatre should passe." And such, no doubt, was the ultimate decision of the Privy Council, for we hear nothing more of the project.

III

OGILBY'S DUBLIN THEATRE

In 1635 a playhouse was opened in Dublin by John Ogilby,—dancing-master, theatrical manager, playwright, scholar, translator, poet,—now best known, perhaps, for the ridicule he inspired in Dryden's MacFlecknoe and Pope's Dunciad. At the beginning of his versatile career he was a successful London dancing-master, popular with "the nobility and gentry." When Thomas Earl of Strafford was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he took Ogilby with him to Dublin, to teach his wife and children the art of dancing, and also to help with the secretarial duties. Under Strafford's patronage, Ogilby was appointed to the post of Master of the Revels for Ireland; and in this capacity he built a small playhouse in Dublin and began to cultivate dramatic representations after the manner of London. Anthony a Wood in Athenae Oxonienses, says:

He built a little theatre to act plays in, in St. Warburg's street in Dublin, and was then and there valued by all ingenious men for his great industry in promoting morality and ingenuity.[693]

[Footnote 693: Bliss's edition, III, 741.]

Aubrey writes:

He had a warrant from the Lord Lieutenant to be Master of the Ceremonies for that kingdom; and built a pretty[694] little theatre in St. Warburgh Street in Dublin.

[Footnote 694: "Pretty little theatre" is the reading of MS. Aubr. 7, folio 20; MS. Aubr. 8 omits the adjective "pretty." For Aubrey's full account of Ogilby see Andrew Clark's Brief Lives (1898), 2 vols.]

The history of this "little theatre" is not known in detail. For its actors Ogilby himself wrote at least one play, entitled The Merchant of Dublin,[695] and Henry Burnell a tragi-comedy entitled Landgartha, printed in 1641 "as it was presented in the new theatre in Dublin with good applause." But its chief playwright was James Shirley, who came to Dublin in 1636 under the patronage of the Earl of Kildare. For the Irish stage he wrote The Royal Master, published in 1638 as "acted in the new theatre in Dublin"; Rosania, or Love's Victory, now known as The Doubtful Heir, under which title it was later printed; St. Patrick for Ireland;[696] and in all probability The Constant Maid.[697] The actors, however, had little need to buy original plays, for they were free, no doubt, to take any of the numerous London successes. From Shirley's Poems we learn that they were presenting Jonson's Alchemist, Middleton's No Wit, two of Fletcher's plays, unnamed, and two anonymous plays entitled The Toy and The General; and we may fairly assume that they honored several of Shirley's early plays in the same way.

[Footnote 695: Aubrey mentions this as having been "written in Dublin, and never printed."]

[Footnote 696: Published in 1640 as "the first part," and both the Prologue and the Epilogue speak of a second part; but no second part was printed, and in all probability it never was written.]

[Footnote 697: Never licensed for England; reprinted in 1657 with St. Patrick for Ireland.]

The theatre came to a sudden end with the outbreak of the rebellion in 1641. In October the Lords Justices prohibited playing there; and shortly after, we are told, the building was "ruined and spoiled, and a cow-house made of the stage."[698]

[Footnote 698: MS. Aubr. 7, folio 20 v. Ogilby's second theatre in Dublin, built after the Restoration, does not fall within the scope of the present work.]

IV

THE FRENCH PLAYERS' TEMPORARY THEATRE IN DRURY LANE

In February, 1635, a company of French players, under the leadership of the eminent actor, Josias de Soulas, better known by his stage-name of Floridor,[699] appeared in London, and won such favor at Court that they were ultimately allowed to fit up a house in Drury Lane for a temporary theatre. The history of these players is mainly found in the records of the Master of the Revels and of the Lord Chamberlain. From the former, Malone has preserved the following entries by Herbert:

On Tuesday night the 17 of February, 1634 [i.e., 1635], a French company of players, being approved of by the Queen at her house two nights before, and commended by Her Majesty to the King, were admitted to the Cockpitt in Whitehall, and there presented the King and Queen with a French comedy called Melise,[700] with good approbation: for which play the King gave them ten pounds.

This day being Friday, and the 20 of the same month, the King told me his pleasure, and commanded me to give order that this French company should play the two sermon days in the week during their time of playing in Lent [i.e., Wednesdays and Fridays, on which days during Lent the English companies were not allowed to play], and in the house of Drury Lane [i.e., the Cockpit Playhouse], where the Queen's Players usually play. The King's pleasure I signified to Mr. Beeston [the manager of the Cockpit] the same day, who obeyed readily. The housekeepers are to give them by promise the benefit of their interest[701] for the two days of the first week. They had the benefit of playing on the sermon days, and got two hundred pounds at least; besides many rich clothes were given them. They had freely to themselves the whole week before the week before Easter,[702] which I obtained of the King for them.

[Footnote 699: See Frederick Hawkins, Annals of the French Stage (1884), I, 148 ff., for the career of this player on the French stage. "Every gift required by the actor," says Hawkins, "was possessed by Floridor."]

[Footnote 700: La Melise, ou Les Princes Reconnus, by Du Rocher, first acted in Paris in 1633; see The Athenaeum, July 11, 1891, p. 73; and cf. ibid., p. 139.]

[Footnote 701: "Housekeepers" were owners, who always demanded of the players as rental for the building a certain part of each day's takings. The passage quoted means that the housekeepers allowed the French players to receive all money taken on the two sermon days of the first week, and after that exacted their usual share as rental for the building.]

[Footnote 702: That is, Passion Week, during which time the English companies were never allowed to give performances.]

The use of the Cockpit in Drury Lane came to an end at Easter, for the Queen's own troupe, under Beeston's management, regularly occupied that building. But the King summoned the French players to act at Court on several occasions. Thus Herbert records:

The 4 April, on Easter Monday,[703] they played the Trompeur Puny[704] with better approbation than the other.

On Wednesday night, the 16 April,[705] 1635, the French played Alcimedor[706] with good approbation.[707]

[Footnote 703: This must be an error, for Easter Monday fell on March 30.]

[Footnote 704: Le Trompeur Puni, ou Histoire Septentrionale, by Scuderi.]

[Footnote 705: Wednesday was the 15th.]

[Footnote 706: Alcimedon, by Duryer.]

[Footnote 707: Malone, Variorum, III, 121, note.]

Clearly these actors were in high favor at Court. Sir Henry, who did not as a rule show any hesitancy in accepting fees, notes in the margin of his book: "The French offered me a present of L10; but I refused it, and did them many other courtesies gratis to render the Queen my mistress an acceptable service." In view of this royal favor, it is not surprising to find that, after they were driven from the Cockpit, they received permission to fit up a temporary playhouse in the manage, or riding-school, of one M. Le Febure, in Drury Lane. The Lord Chamberlain's Office-Book contains the following entry on the subject:

18 April, 1635: His Majesty hath commanded me to signify his royal pleasure that the French comedians (having agreed with Mons. le Febure) may erect a stage, scaffolds, and seats, and all other accommodations which shall be convenient, and act and present interludes and stage plays at his house [and manage[708]] in Drury Lane, during His Majesty's pleasure, without any disturbance, hindrance, or interruption. And this shall be to them, and Mr. le Febure, and to all others, a sufficient discharge, &c.[709]

[Footnote 708: This clause I insert from Mrs. Stopes's notes on the Lord Chamberlain's records, in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch, XLVI, 97.]

[Footnote 709: I have chosen to reproduce the record from Chalmers's Apology, p. 506, note s, rather than from Mrs. Stopes's apparently less accurate notes in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch, XLVI, 97.]

Apparently the players lost little time in fitting up the building, for we read in Herbert's Office-Book:

A warrant granted to Josias D'Aunay,[710] Hurfries de Lau, and others, for to act plays at a new house in Drury Lane, during pleasure, the 5 May, 1635.

The King was pleased to command my Lord Chamberlain to direct his warrant to Monsieur Le Fevure, to give him a power to contract with the Frenchmen for to build a playhouse in the manage-house, which was done accordingly by my advice and allowance.[711]

[Footnote 710: Should we place a comma after "Josias"? That "Josias Floridor" was the leader of the troupe we know from two separate entries; cf. Chalmers, Apology, pp. 508, 509.]

[Footnote 711: Malone, Variorum, III, 122, note.]

In Glapthorne's The Ladies' Priviledge is a good-natured allusion to the French Company and their vivacious style of acting:[712]

La. But, Adorni, What think you of the French?

Ador. Very airy people, who participate More fire than earth; yet generally good, And nobly disposition'd, something inclining To over-weening fancy. This lady Tells my remembrance of a comic scene I once saw in their Theatre.

Bon. Add it to Your former courtesies, and express it.

[Footnote 712: Act II, Scene i. This passage is pointed out by Lawrence, The Elizabethan Playhouse, p. 137.]

Whereupon, according to the stage direction, Adorni "acts furiously."

In the margin of his Office-Book Sir Henry Herbert writes complacently: "These Frenchmen were commended unto me by the Queen, and have passed through my hands gratis." This was indeed a rare favor from Herbert; but they did not so easily escape his deputy, William Blagrove, who accepted from them the sum of "three pounds for his pains."

How long the French actors occupied their temporary playhouse in Drury Lane is not clear. In the Lord Chamberlain's book we find an entry showing that they presented a play at Court in December, 1635: "Warrant to pay L10 to Josias Floridor for himself and the rest of the French players for a tragedy by them played before His Majesty Dec. last."[713] The entry is dated January 8, 1636, and, so far as I can discover, this is the last reference to the French players in London. We may suppose that shortly after this they returned to Paris.

[Footnote 713: Stopes, op. cit., p. 98, Chalmers, Apology, p. 509.]

V

DAVENANT'S PROJECTED THEATRE IN FLEET STREET

On March 26, 1639, William Davenant, who had succeeded Ben Jonson as Poet Laureate, secured from King Charles a royal patent under the Great Seal of England to erect a playhouse in Fleet Street, to be used not only for regular plays, but also for "musical entertainments" and "scenic representations." Davenant, as we know, was especially interested in "the art of perspective in scenes," and also in the Italian opera musicale. The royal patent—unusually verbose even for a patent—is printed in full in Rymer's Foedera, XX, 377; I cite below all the essential passages:

[The Building.] Know ye, that we, of our especial grace, certain knowledge, and meere motion, and upon the humble petition of our servant William Davenant, gentleman, have given and granted, and by these presents, for us, our heirs, and successors, do give and grant unto the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, full power, license, and authority ... to frame, new-build, and set up ... a Theatre or Playhouse, with necessary tiring and retiring rooms, and other places convenient, containing in the whole forty yards square at the most,[714] wherein plays, musical entertainments, scenes, or other like presentments may be presented ... so as the outwalls of the said Theatre or Playhouse, tiring or retiring rooms, be made or built of brick or stone, according to the tenor of our proclamations in that behalf.

[Its Location.] Upon a parcel of ground lying near unto or behind the Three Kings Ordinary in Fleet Street, in the parishes of Saint Dunstan's in the West, London, or in Saint Bride's, London, or in either of them; or in any other ground in or about that place, or in the whole street aforesaid, already allotted to him for that use, or in any other place that is or hereafter shall be assigned or allotted out to the said William Davenant by our right trusty and right well-beloved cousin and counsellor Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, Earl Marshall of England, or any other of our commissioners for building for that time being in that behalf.

[Its Uses.] And we do hereby, for us, our heirs, and successors, grant to the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, that it shall and may be lawful to and for him, the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, from time to time to gather together, entertain, govern, privilege, and keep, such and so many players and persons, to exercise action, musical presentments, scenes, dancing, and the like, as he, the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns shall think fit and approve for the said house; and such persons to permit and continue at and during the pleasure of the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, from time to time to act plays in such house so to be by him or them erected; and exercise music, musical presentments, scenes, dancing, or other the like, at the same, or other, hours, or times, or after plays are ended,[715] peaceably and quietly, without the impeachment or impediment of any person or persons whatsoever, for the honest recreation of such as shall desire to see the same. And that it shall and may be lawful to and for the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, to take and receive of such our subjects as shall resort to see or hear any such plays, scenes, and entertainments whatsoever, such sum or sums of money as is, are, or hereafter from time to time shall be accustomed to be given or taken in other playhouses and places for the like plays, scenes, presentments, and entertainments.

[Footnote 714: The Fortune was only eighty feet square, but the stage projected to the middle of the yard. Davenant probably wished to provide for an alcove stage of sufficient depth to accommodate his "scenes."]

[Footnote 715: That is, he may give his "musical presentments," etc., either at the hours when he was accustomed to give plays, or after his plays are ended. This does not necessarily imply evening entertainments.]

The novelty of the scheme and the great size of the proposed building must have alarmed the owners of playhouses. That the established theatrical proprietors were hostile is clearly indicated by the attitude of Richard Heton, one of the Sewers of the Chamber to Queen Henrietta, and at the time manager of the Salisbury Court Playhouse. In September, 1639, he wrote out a document entitled "Instructions for my Patent," in which he advanced reasons why he should receive the sole power to elect the members of the Queen's Company of Players. He observes that under the existing arrangement the company was free to leave the Salisbury Court Playhouse at their pleasure, "as in one year and a half of their being here they have many times threatened"; and he concludes by adding: "and one now of the chief fellows [i.e., sharers of the company], an agent for one [William Davenant] that hath got a grant from the King for the building of a new playhouse which was intended to be in Fleet Street, which no man can judge that a fellow of our Company, and a well-wisher to those that own the house, would ever be an actor in."[716] Doubtless the owners of other houses had the same sentiments, and exercised what influence they possessed against the scheme. But the most serious opposition in all probability came from the citizens and merchants living in the neighborhood. We know how bitterly they complained about the coaches that brought playgoers to the small Blackfriars Theatre, and how strenuously from year to year they sought the expulsion of the King's Men from the precinct.[717] They certainly would not have regarded with complacency the erection in their midst of a still larger theatre.

[Footnote 716: Cunningham, The Whitefriars Theatre, in The Shakespeare Society's Papers, IV, 96.]

[Footnote 717: See the chapter on the Second Blackfriars.]

Whatever the opposition, it was so powerful that on October 2 Davenant was compelled to make an indenture by which he virtually renounced[718] for himself and his heirs for ever the right to build a theatre in Fleet Street, or in any other place "in or near the cities, or suburbs of the cities, of London or Westminster," without further and special permission granted. This document, first printed by Chalmers in his Supplemental Apology, is as follows:

This indenture made the second day of October, in the fifteenth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord Charles, by the grace of God, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Anno Domini 1639. Between the said King's most excellent Majesty of the first part, and William Davenant of London, Gent., of the other part. Whereas the said King's most excellent Majesty, by His Highness's letters patents under the Great Seal of England bearing date the six and twentieth day of March last past before the date of these presents, did give and grant unto the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns full power, license, and authority that he, they, and every of them, by him and themselves and by all and every such person or persons as he or they shall depute or appoint, and his and their laborers, servants, and workmen, shall and may lawfully, quietly, and peaceably frame, erect, new build, and set up upon a parcel of ground lying near unto or behind the Three Kings Ordinary in Fleet Street in the Parish of St. Dunstan's in the West, London, or in St. Bride's London, or in either of them, or in any other ground in or about that place, or in the whole street aforesaid, already allotted to him for that use, or in any other place that is or hereafter shall be assigned and allotted out to the said William Davenant by the Right Honorable Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, Earl Marshall of England, or any other His Majesty's Commissioners for Building, for the time being in that behalf, a theatre or playhouse with necessary tiring and retiring rooms and other places convenient, containing in the whole forty yards square at the most, wherein plays, musical entertainments, scenes, or other the like presentments may be presented by and under certain provisors or conditions in the same contained, as in and by the said letters patents, whereunto relation being had more fully and at large, it doth and may appear.

Now this indenture witnesseth, and the said William Davenant doth by these presents declare, His Majesty's intent, meaning at and upon the granting of the said license was and is that he, the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators nor assigns should not frame, build, or set up the said theatre or playhouse in any place inconvenient, and that the said parcel of ground lying near unto or behind the Three Kings Ordinary in Fleet Street in the said Parish of St. Dunstan's in the West, London, or in St. Bride's, London, or in either of them, or in any other ground in or about that place, or in the whole street aforesaid, and is sithence found inconvenient and unfit for that purpose, therefore the said William Davenant doth for himself his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, and every of them, covenant, promise, and agree to and with our said Sovereign Lord the King, his heirs and successors, that he, the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators, nor assigns shall not, nor will not, by virtue of the said license and authority to him granted as aforesaid, frame, erect, new build, or set up upon the said parcel of ground in Fleet Street aforesaid, or in any other part of Fleet Street, a theatre or playhouse, nor will not frame, erect, new build, or set up upon any other parcel of ground lying in or near the cities, or suburbs of the cities, of London or Westminster any theatre or playhouse, unless the said place shall be first approved and allowed by warrant under His Majesty's sign manual, or by writing under the hand and seal of the said Right Honorable Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey. In witness whereof to the one part of this indenture the said William Davenant hath set his hand and seal the day and year first above written.

WILLIAM DAVENANT. L.S.

Signed sealed and delivered in the presence of Edw. Penruddoks. Michael Baker.

[Footnote 718: That he did not actually surrender the patent is shown by the fact that he claimed privileges by virtue of it after the Restoration; see Halliwell-Phillipps, A Collection of Ancient Documents, p. 48.]

Possibly as a recompense for this surrender of his rights, Davenant was made Governor of the King's and Queen's Servants at the Cockpit in June of the following year; and from this time until the suppression of acting in 1642, he expended his energies in managing the affairs of this important playhouse.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

[In the following list are included the books and articles constituting the main authorities upon which the present study is based. The list is not intended to be an exhaustive bibliography, though from the nature of the case it is fairly complete. For the guidance of scholars the more important titles are marked with asterisks. It will be seen that not all the works are included which are cited in the text, or referred to in footnotes; the list, in fact, is strictly confined to works bearing upon the history of the pre-Restoration playhouses. Considerations of space have led to the omission of a large number of books dealing with the topography of London, and of the counties of Middlesex and Surrey, although a knowledge of these is essential to any thorough study of the playhouses. Furthermore, titles of contemporary plays, pamphlets, and treatises are excluded, except a few of unusual and general value. Finally, discussions of the structure of the early stage, of the manner of dramatic performances in the time of Shakespeare, and of the travels of English actors on the Continent are omitted, except when these contain also material important for the study of the theatres. At the close is appended a select list of early maps and views of London.]

[Transcriber's Note: In the original book, the numbers of the entries below are at the end of the entry at the right margin, preceded by a single square bracket. For the sake of clarity, in this e-book the entries below are numbered at the left margin without the bracket.]

*1. Actors Remonstrance, or Complaint for the Silencing of their Profession. London, 1643. (Reprinted in W.C. Hazlitt's The English Drama and Stage, and in E.W. Ashbee's Facsimile Reprints.)

*2. ADAMS, J.Q. The Conventual Buildings of Blackfriars, London, and the Playhouses Constructed Therein. (The University of North Carolina Studies in Philology, XIV, 64.)

3. —— The Four Pictorial Representations of the Elizabethan Stage. (The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, X, 329.)

*4. —— The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels 1623-1673. New Haven, 1917.

5. —— Lordinge (alias "Lodowick") Barry. (Modern Philology, IX, 567. See No. 189.)

6. ALBRECHT, H.A. Das englische Kindertheater. Halle, 1883.

7. ARCHER, T. The Highway of Letters. London, 1893. (Chap. XV, "Whitefriars and the Playhouses.")

8. ARCHER, W. The Fortune Theatre. (The London Tribune, October 12, 1907; reprinted in New Shakespeariana, October, 1908, and in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch, XLIV, 159. See also Nos. 8, 38, 61, 129.)

9. —— A Sixteenth Century Playhouse. (The Universal Review, June, 1888, p. 281. Deals with the De Witt drawing of the Swan.)

10. ARONSTEIN, P. Die Organisation des englischen Schauspiels im Zeitalter Shakespeares. (Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, II, 165, 216.)

11. AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM. Cunningham's Extracts from the Revels' Books. (The Athenaeum, 1911, II, 101, 130, 421; 1912, I, 469, 654; II, 143. See Nos. 80, 179, 180, 183.)

12. BAKER, G.P. The Children of Powles. (The Harvard Monthly, May, 1891.)

13. —— The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist. New York, 1907.

14. BAKER, H.B. History of the London Stage and its Famous Players. London and New York, 1904. (A new and rewritten edition of The London Stage. 2 vols. London, 1889.)

15. —— Our Old Actors. 2 vols. London, 1881. (There was an earlier edition, London, 1878, printed in New York, 1879, with the title, English Actors from Shakespeare to Macready.)

16. BAPST, C.G. Essai sur l'Histoire du Theatre. Paris, 1893.

17. BARRETT, C.R.B. The History of the Society of Apothecaries of London. London, 1905.

BEAR GARDEN AND HOPE. See Nos. 27, 72, 99, 119, 143, 144, 147, 152, 157, 198, 221, 222, 223, 228, 236, 238, 239, 240, 241, 274, 281, 303, 304, 316.

*18. BELL, H. Contributions to the History of the English Playhouse. (The Architectural Record, March and April, 1913.)

19. BELL, W.G. Fleet Street in Seven Centuries. London, 1912. (Chap. XIV, "The Whitefriars Playhouses.")

20. BESANT, SIR W. Mediaeval London. London in the Time of the Tudors. London in the Time of the Stuarts. 4 vols. London, 1903-06.

21. BINZ, G. Deutsche Besucher im Shakespeare'schen London. (Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung. Muenchen, August, 1902.)

22. —— Londoner Theater und Schauspiele im Jahre 1599. (Anglia, XXII, 456.)

*23. BIRCH, T. AND R.F. WILLIAMS. The Court and Times of James the First. 2 vols. London, 1849.

BLACKFRIARS, FIRST AND SECOND. See Nos. 2, 6, 17, 20, 26, 34, 41, 42, 43, 59, 61, 72, 90, 97, 100, 101, 105, 106, 108, 119, 136, 137, 146, 150, 163, 178, 179, 191, 196, 201, 214, 218, 223, 244, 248, 287, 288, 289, 293, 296, 297, 298.

24. BLANCH, W.H. Dulwich College and Edward Alleyn. London, 1877.

25. BOLINGBROKE, L.G. Pre-Elizabethan Plays and Players in Norfolk. (Norfolk Archaeology, XI, 336.)

26. BOND, R.W. The Complete Works of John Lyly. 3 vols. Oxford, 1902.

27. BOULTON, W.B. The Amusements of Old London. 2 vols. London, 1901.

*28. BRAINES, W.W. Holywell Priory and the Site of the Theatre, Shoreditch. London, 1915. (Part XLIII of Indications of Houses of Historical Interest in London, issued by the London County Council.)

BRAND, J. See No. 157.

29. BRANDES, G. William Shakespeare. Translated by William Archer. 2 vols. London, 1898.

30. BRAYLEY, E.W. Historical and Descriptive Accounts of the Theatres of London. London, 1826. (Brief notice of the Cockpit in Drury Lane; relates chiefly to Restoration theatres.)

31. BRERETON, J. LE G. De Witt at the Swan. (A Book of Homage to Shakespeare. Oxford, 1916, p. 204.)

32. BRUCE, J. Who was "Will, my lord of Leycester's jesting player"? (The Shakespeare Society's Papers, I, 88.)

33. BULLEN, G. The Cockpit or Phoenix Theatre in 1660. (The Athenaeum, May 21, 1881, p. 699.)

*34. BUeLOW, G. VON AND W. POWELL. Diary of the Journey of Philip Julius, Duke of Stettin-Pomerania, through England in the year 1602. (Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, New Series, VI. See No. 146.)

*35. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1547-1660. London, 1856-. (See also No. 192.)

36. Calendar of the Patent Rolls. London, 1891-1908.

37. CALMOUR, A.C. Fact and Fiction about Shakespeare, with Some Account of the Playhouses, Players, and Playwrights of His Period. Stratford-on-Avon, 1894.

38. A Catalogue of Models and of Stage-Sets in the Dramatic Museum of Columbia University. New York, 1916. (See also Nos. 129, 211.)

*39. CHALMERS, GEORGE. An Apology for the Believers in the Shakspeare-Papers. London, 1797.

*40. —— A Supplemental Apology. London, 1799.

*41. CHAMBERS, E.K. Commissions for the Chapel. (The Malone Society's Collections, I, 357.)

*42. —— Court Performances Before Queen Elizabeth. (The Modern Language Review, II, 1.)

*43. —— Court Performances Under James the First. (Ibid., IV, 153.)

*44. —— Dramatic Records from the Lansdowne Manuscripts. (The Malone Society's Collections, I, 143.)

45. —— The Elizabethan Lords Chamberlain. (Ibid., I, 31.)

46. —— [Review of] Henslowe's Diary, Edited by Walter W. Greg. (The Modern Language Review, IV, 407, 511.)

*47. —— A Jotting by John Aubrey. (The Malone Society's Collections, I, 341. Concerns Beeston and the Cockpit in Drury Lane.)

*48. —— The Mediaeval Stage. Oxford, 1903.

49. —— Nathaniel Field and Joseph Taylor. (The Modern Language Review, IV, 395.)

50. —— Notes on the History of the Revels Office under the Tudors. London, 1906.

51. —— The Stage of the Globe. (The Works of William Shakespeare. Stratford-Town Edition. Stratford-on-Avon, 1904-07, X, 351.)

52. —— Two Early Player-Lists. (The Malone Society's Collections, I, 348.)

53. —— William Kempe. (The Modern Language Review, IV, 88.)

*54. CHAMBERS, E.K. AND W.W. GREG. Dramatic Records from the Privy Council Register, 1603-1642. (The Malone Society's Collections, I, 370. For the records prior to 1603 see No. 87. Cf. also No. 260.)

*55. —— Dramatic Records of the City of London. The Remembrancia. (The Malone Society's Collections, I, 43. See also No. 224.)

*56. —— Royal Patents for Players. (The Malone Society's Collections, I, 260.)

57. CHARLANNE, L. L'Influence Francaise en Angleterre au xviie Siecle, Le Theatre et la Critique. Paris, 1906.

*58. CHILD, H. The Elizabethan Theatre. (The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. VI, chap. X.)

59. CLAPHAM, A.W. On the Topography of the Dominican Priory of London. (Archaeologia, LXIII, 57. See also Nos. 2, 61.)

*60. —— The Topography of the Carmelite Priory of London. (The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, New Series, XVI, 15. See also No. 61.)

61. CLAPHAM, A.W. AND W.H. GODFREY. Some Famous Buildings and their Story. Westminster, [1913]. (Contains Godfrey's study of the Fortune contract, and, in abbreviated form, the two articles by Clapham noted above, Nos. 59, 60. See also Nos. 8, 38, 116, 129.)