went forward apace with the erection of their new playhouse. They made
an assessment of "£50 or £60" upon each share.[413] Since at this time
there were fourteen shares, the amount thus raised was £700 or £840.
This would probably be enough to erect a building as large and as well
equipped as the old Globe. But the proprietors determined upon a
larger and a very much handsomer building. As Howes, the continuer of
Stow's _Annals_, writes, "it was new builded in far fairer manner than
before"; or as John Taylor, the Water-Poet, puts it:

     As gold is better that's in fire tried,
     So is the Bankside _Globe_ that late was burn'd.[414]

[Footnote 413: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p.
60.]

[Footnote 414: _Works_ (1630), p. 31; The Spenser Society reprint, p.
515.]

Naturally the cost of rebuilding exceeded the original estimate.
Heminges tells us that on one share, or one-fourteenth, he was
required to pay for "the re-edifying about the sum of £120."[415]
This would indicate a total cost of "about" £1680. Heminges should
know, for he was the business manager of the organization; and his
truthfulness cannot be questioned. Since, however, the adjective
"about," especially when multiplied by fourteen, leaves a generous
margin of uncertainty, it is gratifying to have a specific statement
from one of the sharers in 1635 that the owners had "been at the
charge of £1400 in building of the said house upon the burning down of
the former."[416] Heminges tells us that "he found that the
re-edifying of the said playhouse would be a very great charge," and
that he so "doubted what benefit would arise thereby" that he actually
gave away half of one share "to Henry Condell, _gratis_."[417] But his
fears were unfounded. We learn from Witter that after the rebuilding
of the Globe the "yearly value" of a share was greater "by much" than
it had been before.[418]

[Footnote 415: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p.
61.]

[Footnote 416: Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 316. This evidence
seems to me unimpeachable. I should add, however, that Mr. Wallace
considers the estimate "excessive," and says that he has "other
contemporary documents showing the cost was far less than £1400." (The
London _Times_, October 2, 1909.)]

[Footnote 417: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p.
61. There is, I think, no truth in the statement made by the
inaccurate annotator of the Phillipps copy of Stow's _Annals_, that
the Globe was built "at the great charge of King James and many
noblemen and others." (See _The Academy_, October 28, 1882, p. 314.)
The Witter-Heminges documents sufficiently disprove that. We may well
believe, however, that the King and his noblemen were interested in
the new building, and encouraged the actors in many ways.]

[Footnote 418: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p.
70.]

The New Globe, like its predecessor, was built of timber,[419] and on
the same site--indeed the carpenters made use of the old foundation,
which seems not to have been seriously injured. In a "return" of 1634,
preserved at St. Saviour's, we read: "The Globe playhouse, near Maid
Lane, built by the company of players, with a dwelling house thereto
adjoining, built with timber, about 20 years past, upon an old
foundation."[420] In spite of the use made of the old foundation, the
new structure was unquestionably larger than the First Globe; Marmion,
in the Prologue to _Holland's Leaguer_, acted at Salisbury Court in
1634, speaks of "the vastness of the Globe," and Shirley, in the
Prologue to _Rosania_, applies the adjective "vast" to the building.
Moreover, the builders had "the wit," as Jonson tells us, "to cover it
with tiles." John Taylor, the Water-Poet, writes:

     For where before it had a thatched hide,
     Now to a stately theatre is turn'd.

[Footnote 419: I see no reason to accept Mr. Wallace's suggestion
(_The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 34, note 7) that "it
seems questionable, but not unlikely, that the timber framework was
brick-veneered and plastered over." Mr. Wallace mistakenly accepts
Wilkinson's view of the second Fortune as genuine.]

[Footnote 420: Rendle, _Bankside_, p. xvii.]

The Second Globe is represented, but unsatisfactorily, in Hollar's
_View of London_, dated 1647 (opposite page 260). It should be noted
that the artist was in banishment from 1643 (at which time the Globe
was still standing) until 1652, and hence, in drawing certain
buildings, especially those not reproduced in earlier views of London,
he may have had to rely upon his memory. This would explain the
general vagueness of his representation of the Globe.

The construction was not hurried, for the players had Blackfriars as a
home. Under normal conditions they did not move from the city to the
Bankside until some time in May; and shortly after that date, in the
early summer of 1614, the New Globe was ready for them. John
Chamberlain writes to Mrs. Alice Carleton on June 30, 1614:

     I have not seen your sister Williams since I came to town,
     though I have been there twice. The first time she was at a
     neighbor's house at cards, and the next she was gone to the
     New Globe to a play. Indeed, I hear much speech of this new
     playhouse, which is said to be the fairest that ever was in
     England.[421]

[Footnote 421: Birch, _The Court and Times of James the First_, I,
329; quoted by Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_,
p. 35.]

[Illustration: THE SECOND GLOBE

From Hollar's _View of London_ (1647).]

With this New Globe Shakespeare had little to do, for his career as a
playwright had been run, and probably he had already retired from
acting. Time, indeed, was beginning to thin out the little band of
friends who had initiated and made famous the Globe organization.
Thomas Pope had died in 1603, Augustine Phillips in 1605, William Slye
in 1608, and, just a few months after the opening of the new
playhouse, William Osteler, who had been admitted to the
partnership in 1611. He had begun his career as a child-actor at
Blackfriars, had later joined the King's Men, and had married
Heminges's daughter Thomasine.

A more serious blow to the company, however, fell in April, 1616, when
Shakespeare himself died. To the world he had been "the applause,
delight, the wonder" of the stage; but to the members of the Globe
Company he had been for many years a "friend and fellow." Only Burbage
and Heminges (described in 1614 as "old Heminges"), now remained of
the original venturers. And Burbage passed away on March 13, 1619:

     He's gone! and with him what a world are dead
     Which he reviv'd--to be revived so
     No more. Young Hamlet, old Hieronimo,
     Kind Lear, the grieved Moor, and more beside
     That lived in him have now for ever died![422]

[Footnote 422: From a folio MS. in the Huth Library, printed by J.P.
Collier in _The History of English Dramatic Poetry_ (1879), I, 411,
and by various others.]

Many elegies in a similar vein were written celebrating his wonderful
powers as an actor; yet the tribute that perhaps affects us most deals
with him merely as a man. The Earl of Pembroke, writing to the
Ambassador to Germany, gives the court news about the mighty ones of
the kingdom: "My Lord of Lenox made a great supper to the French
Ambassador this night here, and even now all the company are at a
play; which I, being tender-hearted, could not endure to see so soon
after the loss of my old acquaintance Burbage."[423]

[Footnote 423: Printed by Mrs. Stopes, _Burbage and Shakespeare's
Stage_, p. 117, with many other interesting references to the great
actor.]

[Illustration: THE TRADITIONAL SITE OF THE GLOBE

From Wilkinson's _Theatrum Illustrata_ (1825). This site is still
advocated by some scholars. Compare page 245.]

In 1623 Heminges and Condell, with great "care and paine," collected
and published the plays of Shakespeare, "onely to keep the memory of
so worthy a Friend and Fellow alive"; and shortly after, they too
died, Condell in 1627 and Heminges in 1630.

After the passing of this group of men, whose names are so familiar to
us, the history of the playhouse seems less important, and may be
chronicled briefly.

When young Matthew Brend came of age he recovered possession of the
Globe property by a decree of the Court of Wards. Apparently he
accepted the lease executed by his uncle and guardian, Bodley, by
which the actors were to remain in possession of the Globe until
December 25, 1635; but in 1633 he sought to cancel the lease he
himself had executed as a minor, by which the actors were to remain in
possession until 1644. His purpose in thus seeking to gain possession
of the Globe was to lease it to other actors at a material increase in
his profits.[424] Naturally the owners of the Globe were alarmed, and
they brought suit in the Court of Requests. In 1635, one of the
sharers, John Shanks, declares that he "is without any hope to renew"
the lease; and he refers thus to the suit against Brend: "When your
suppliant purchased his parts [in 1634] he had no certainty thereof
more than for one year in the Globe, and there was a chargeable suit
then pending in the Court of Requests between Sir Mathew Brend,
Knight, and the lessees of the Globe and their assigns, for the adding
of nine years to their lease in consideration that their predecessors
had formerly been at the charge of £1400 in building of the said
house."[425] The lessees ultimately won their contention, and thus
secured the right to occupy the Globe until December 25, 1644--a term
which, as it happened, was quite long enough, for the Puritans closed
all playhouses in 1642.

[Footnote 424: Wallace, "Shakespeare and the Globe," in the London
_Times_, April 30 and May 1, 1914.]

[Footnote 425: The Petition of the Young Actors, printed by
Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 312. Mrs. Stopes, in _Burbage and
Shakespeare's Stage_, p. 129, refers to a record of the suit mentioned
by Shanks, dated February 6, 1634.]

What disposition, if any, the sharers made of the Globe between 1642
and 1644 we do not know. But before the lease expired, it seems, Brend
demolished the playhouse and erected tenements on its site. In the
manuscript notes to the Phillipps copy of Stow's _Annals_, we find the
statement that the Globe was "pulled down to the ground by Sir Mathew
Brend, on Monday the 15 of April, 1644, to make tenements in the room
of it";[426] and the statement is verified by a mortgage, executed in
1706, between Elizabeth, the surviving daughter and heir of Thomas
Brend, and one William James, citizen of London. The mortgage concerns
"all those messuages or tenements ... most of which ... were erected
and built where the late playhouse called the Globe stood, and upon
the ground thereunto belonging."[427]

[Footnote 426: Printed in _The Academy_, October 28, 1882, p. 314.
Should we read the date as 1644/5?]

[Footnote 427: William Martin, _The Site of the Globe_, p. 171.]

After this the history of the property becomes obscure. Mrs. Thrale
(later Mrs. Piozzi), the friend of Samuel Johnson, whose residence was
near by in Deadman's Place, thought that she saw certain "remains of
the Globe" discovered by workmen in the employ of her husband:[428]
"For a long time, then,--or I thought it such,--my fate was bound up
with the old Globe Theatre, upon the Bankside, Southwark; the alley it
had occupied having been purchased and [the tenements] thrown down by
Mr. Thrale to make an opening before the windows of our
dwelling-house. When it lay desolate in a black heap of rubbish, my
mother one day in a joke called it the Ruins of Palmyra; and after
that they had laid it down in a grass-plot Palmyra was the name it
went by.... But there were really curious remains of the old Globe
Playhouse, which though hexagonal in form without, was round within."
In spite of serious difficulties in this narrative it is possible that
the workmen, in digging the ground preparatory to laying out the
garden, uncovered the foundation of the Globe, which, it will be
recalled, was formed of piles driven deep into the soil, and so well
made that it resisted the fire of 1613.[429]

[Footnote 428: Printed in _The Builder_, March 26, 1910, from the
Conway MSS. in Mrs. Thrale's handwriting.]

[Footnote 429: For later discoveries of supposed Globe relics, all
very doubtful, see the London _Times_, October 8, 1909; George
Hubbard, _The Site of the Globe Theatre_; and William Martin, _The
Site of the Globe_, p. 201.]

At the present time the site of the Globe is covered by the extensive
brewery of Messrs. Barclay, Perkins, and Company. Upon one of the
walls of the brewery, on the south side of Park Street, which was
formerly Maiden Lane, has been placed a bronze memorial tablet[430]
showing in relief the Bankside, with what is intended to be the Globe
Playhouse conspicuously displayed in the foreground. This is a
circular building designed after the circular playhouse in the
Speed-Hondius _View of London_, and represents, as I have tried to
show, not the Globe, but the Rose. At the left side of the tablet is
a bust of the poet modeled after the Droeshout portrait. At the right
is the simple inscription:

     HERE STOOD THE GLOBE PLAYHOUSE OF SHAKESPEARE

[Footnote 430: The tablet was designed by Dr. William Martin and
executed by Professor Lanteri. For photographs of it and of the place
in which it is erected, see _The London Illustrated News_, October 9,
1909, CXXXV, 500.]

Yet it is very doubtful whether the Globe really stood there. Mr.
Wallace has produced good evidence to show that the building was on
the north side of Park Street near the river; and in the course of the
present study I have found that site generally confirmed.

CHAPTER XIII

THE FORTUNE

The erection of the Globe on the Bankside within a few hundred yards
of the Rose was hardly gratifying to the Admiral's Men. Not only did
it put them in close competition with the excellent Burbage-Shakespeare
organization, but it caused their playhouse (now nearly a quarter of a
century old, and said to be in a state of "dangerous decay") to suffer
in comparison with the new and far handsomer Globe, "the glory of the
Bank." Accordingly, before the Globe had been in operation much more
than half a year, Henslowe and Alleyn decided to move to another
section of London, and to erect there a playhouse that should surpass
the Globe both in size and in magnificence. To the authorities,
however, they gave as reasons for abandoning the Rose, first, "the
dangerous decay" of the building, and secondly, "for that the same
standeth very noisome for resort of people in the winter time."

The new playhouse was undertaken by Henslowe and Alleyn jointly,
although the exact arrangement between them is not now clear. Alleyn
seems to have advanced the money and to have held the titles of
ownership; but on April 4, 1601, he leased to Henslowe a moiety (or
one-half interest) in the playhouse and other properties connected
with it for a period of twenty-four years at an annual rental of £8--a
sum far below the real value of the moiety.[431]

[Footnote 431: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 25; Wallace, _Three London
Theatres_, p. 53. Later, Alleyn rented to the actors the playhouse
alone for £200 per annum. In the document, Alleyn _v._ William
Henslowe, published by Mr. Wallace in _Three London Theatres_, p. 52,
it is revealed that this annual rental of £8 was canceled by Alleyn's
rental of a house from Henslowe on the Bankside; hence no actual
payments by Henslowe appear in the Henslowe-Alleyn papers.]

Whatever the details of the arrangement between the two partners, the
main outlines of their procedure are clear. On December 22, 1599,
Alleyn purchased for £240 a thirty-three-year lease[432] of a plot of
ground situated to the north of the city, in the Parish of St. Giles
without Cripplegate. This plot of ground, we are told, stood "very
tolerable, near unto the Fields, and so far distant and remote from
any person or place of account as that none can be annoyed
thereby";[433] and yet, as the Earl of Nottingham wrote, it was "very
convenient for the ease of people."[434]

[Footnote 432: Later, by a series of negotiations ending in 1610,
Alleyn secured the freehold of the property. The total cost to him was
£800. See Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, pp. 14, 17, 108.]

[Footnote 433: _Ibid._, p. 50.]

[Footnote 434: _Ibid._, p. 49; cf. p. 51.]

The property thus acquired lay between Golding Lane and Whitecross
Street, two parallel thoroughfares running north and south. There were
tenements on the edge of the property facing Whitecross Street,
tenements on the edge facing Golding Lane, and an open space between.
Alleyn and Henslowe planned to erect their new playhouse in this open
space "between Whitecross Street and Golding Lane," and to make "a way
leading to it" from Golding Lane. The ground set aside for the
playhouse is described as "containing in length from east to west one
hundred twenty and seven feet and a half, a little more or less, and
in breadth, from north to south, one hundred twenty and nine feet, a
little more or less."[435]

[Footnote 435: Collier, _The Alleyn Papers_, p. 98. For a slightly
different measurement of the plot see Collier, _Memoirs of Edward
Alleyn_, p. 167.]

The lease of this property having been consummated on December 22,
1599, on January 8, 1600, Henslowe and Alleyn signed a contract with
the carpenter, Peter Street (who had recently gained valuable
experience in building the Globe), to erect the new playhouse. The
contract called for the completion of the building by July 25, 1600,
provided, however, the workmen were "not by any authority restrained."

The latter clause may indicate that Peter Street anticipated
difficulties. If so, he was not mistaken, for when early in January
his workmen began to assemble material for the erection of the
building, the authorities, especially those of the Parish of St.
Giles, promptly interfered. Alleyn thereupon appealed to the patron of
the troupe, the Earl of Nottingham, the Lord Admiral. On January 12,
1600, Nottingham issued a warrant to the officers of the county "to
permit and suffer my said servant [Edward Alleyn] to proceed in the
effecting and furnishing of the said new house, without any your let
or molestation toward him or any of his workmen."[436] This warrant,
however, seems not to have prevented the authorities of St. Giles from
continuing their restraint. Alleyn was then forced to play his trump
card--through his great patron to secure from the Privy Council itself
a warrant for the construction of the building. First, however, by
offering "to give a very liberal portion of money weekly" towards the
relief of "the poor in the parish of St. Giles," he persuaded many of
the inhabitants to sign a document addressed to the Privy Council, in
which they not only gave their full consent to the erection of the
playhouse, but actually urged "that the same might proceed."[437] This
document he placed in the hands of Nottingham to use in influencing
the Council. The effort was successful. On April 8 the Council issued
a warrant "to the Justices of the Peace of the County of Middlesex,
especially of St. Giles without Cripplegate, and to all others whom it
shall concern," that they should permit Henslowe and Alleyn "to
proceed in the effecting and finishing of the same new house."[438]

[Footnote 436: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 49.]

[Footnote 437: _Ibid._, p. 50.]

[Footnote 438: _Ibid._, p. 51.]

[Illustration: THE SITE OF THE FORTUNE PLAYHOUSE

The site of the Fortune is marked by Playhouse Yard, connecting Golden
Lane and Whitecross Street. (From Ogilby and Morgan's _Map of London_,
1677.)]

This warrant, of course, put an end to all interference by local
authorities. But as the playhouse reared itself high above the walls
of the city to the north, the Puritans were aroused to action. They
made this the occasion for a most violent attack on actors and
theatres in general, and on the Fortune in particular. With this
attack the city authorities, for reasons of their own, heartily
sympathized, but they had no jurisdiction over the Parish of St.
Giles, or over the other localities in which playhouses were situated.
Since the Privy Council had specially authorized the erection of the
Fortune, the Lord Mayor shifted the attack to that body, and himself
dispatched an urgent request to the Lords for reformation. In response
to all this agitation the Lords of the Privy Council on June 22, 1600,
issued the following order:

     Whereas divers complaints have heretofore been made unto the
     Lords and other of Her Majesty's Privy Council of the
     manifold abuses and disorders that have grown and do
     continue by occasion of many houses erected and employed in
     and about London for common stage-plays; and now very lately
     by reason of some complaint exhibited by sundry persons
     against the building of the like house in or near Golding
     Lane ... the Lords and the rest of Her Majesty's Privy
     Council with one and full consent have ordered in manner and
     form as follows. First, that there shall be about the city
     two houses, and no more, allowed to serve for the use of the
     common stage-plays; of the which houses, one [the Globe]
     shall be in Surrey, in that place which is commonly called
     the Bankside or thereabouts, and the other [the Fortune] in
     Middlesex. Secondly, ... it is likewise ordered that the two
     several companies of players assigned unto the two houses
     allowed may play each of them in their several houses twice
     a week and no oftener; and especially that they shall
     refrain to play on the Sabbath day ... and that they shall
     forbear altogether in the time of Lent.

The first part of this order, limiting the playhouses and companies to
two, was merely a repetition of the order of 1598.[439] It meant that
the Lords of the Privy Council formally licensed the Admiral's and the
Lord Chamberlain's Companies to play in London (of course the Lords
might, when they saw fit, license other companies for specific
periods). The second part of the order, limiting the number of
performances, was more serious, for no troupe could afford to act only
twice a week. The order if carried out would mean the ruin of the
Fortune and the Globe Companies. But it was not carried out. The
actors, as we learn from Henslowe's _Diary_, did not restrict
themselves to two plays a week. Why, then, did the Lords issue this
order, and why was it not put into effect? A study of the clever way
in which Alleyn, Nottingham, and the Privy Council overcame the
opposition of the puritanical officers of St. Giles who were
interfering with the erection of the Fortune will suggest the
explanation. The Lords were making a shrewd move to quiet the noisy
enemies of the drama. They did not intend that the Admiral's and the
Chamberlain's Men should be driven out of existence; they were merely
meeting fanaticism with craft.

[Footnote 439: See page 174.]

Alleyn and Henslowe must have understood this,--possibly they learned
it directly from their patron Nottingham,--for they proceeded with the
erection of their expensive building. The work, however, had been so
seriously delayed by the restraints of the local authorities that the
foundations were not completed until May 8.[440] On that day
carpenters were brought from Windsor, and set to the task of erecting
the frame. Since the materials had been accumulating on the site since
January 17, the work of erection must have proceeded rapidly. The
daily progress of this work is marked in Henslowe's _Diary_ by the
dinners of Henslowe with the contractor, Peter Street. On August 8,
these dinners ceased, so that on that date, or shortly after, we may
assume, the building proper was finished.[441]

[Footnote 440: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 10.]

[Footnote 441: Greg, _Henslowe's Diary_, I, 158-59.]

For erecting the building Street received £440. But this did not
include the painting of the woodwork (which, if we may judge from De
Witt's description of the Swan, must have been costly), or the
equipment of the stage. We learn from Alleyn's memoranda that the
final cost of the playhouse was £520.[442] Hence, after Street's work
of erection was finished in August, the entire building had to be
painted, and the stage properly equipped with curtains, hangings,
machines, etc. This must have occupied at least two months. From
Henslowe's _Diary_ it appears that the playhouse was first used about
the end of November or the early part of December, 1600.[443]

[Footnote 442: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 108.]

[Footnote 443: Greg, _Henslowe's Diary_, I, 124.]

The original contract of Henslowe and Alleyn with Peter Street for the
erection of the Fortune, preserved among the papers at Dulwich
College, supplies us with some very exact details of the size and
shape of the building. Although the document is long, and is couched
in the legal verbiage of the day, it will repay careful study. For the
convenience of the reader I quote below its main specifications:[444]

     _Foundation._ A good, sure, and strong foundation, of piles,
     brick, lime, and sand, both without and within, to be
     wrought one foot of assize at the least above the ground.

     _Frame._ The frame of the said house to be set square, and
     to contain fourscore foot of lawful assize every way square
     without, and fifty-five foot of like assize square every way
     within.

     _Materials._ And shall also make all the said frame in every
     point for scantlings larger and bigger in assize than the
     scantlings of the said new-erected house called the Globe.

     _Exterior._ To be sufficiently enclosed without with lath,
     lime, and hair.

     _Stairs._ With such like stairs, conveyances, and divisions,
     without and within, as are made and contrived in and to the
     late erected playhouse ... called the Globe.... And the
     staircases thereof to be sufficiently enclosed without with
     lath, lime, and hair.

     _Height of galleries._ And the said frame to contain three
     stories in height; the first, or lower story to contain
     twelve foot of lawful assize in height; the second story
     eleven foot of lawful assize in height; and the third, or
     upper story, to contain nine foot of lawful assize in
     height.

     _Breadth of galleries._ All which stories shall contain
     twelve foot of lawful assize in breadth throughout. Besides
     a jutty forward in either of the said two upper stories of
     ten inches of lawful assize.

     _Protection of lowest gallery._ The lower story of the said
     frame withinside ... [to be] paled in below with good,
     strong, and sufficient new oaken boards.... And the said
     lower story to be also laid over and fenced with strong iron
     pikes.

     _Divisions of galleries._ With four convenient divisions for
     gentlemen's rooms, and other sufficient and convenient
     divisions for two-penny rooms.... And the gentlemen's rooms
     and two-penny rooms to be ceiled with lath, lime, and hair.

     _Seats._ With necessary seats to be placed and set, as well
     in those rooms as throughout all the rest of the galleries.

     _Stage._ With a stage and tiring-house to be made, erected,
     and set up within the said frame; with a shadow or cover
     over the said stage. Which stage shall be placed and set (as
     also the staircases of the said frame) in such sort as is
     prefigured in a plot thereof drawn. [The plot has been
     lost.] And which stage shall contain in length forty and
     three foot of lawful assize, and in breadth to extend to
     the middle of the yard of the said house. The same stage to
     be paled in below with good, strong, and sufficient new
     oaken boards.... And the said stage to be in all other
     proportions contrived and fashioned like unto the stage of
     the said playhouse called the Globe.... And the said ...
     stage ... to be covered with tile, and to have a sufficient
     gutter of lead to carry and convey the water from the
     covering of the said stage to fall backwards.

     _Tiring-house._ With convenient windows and lights, glazed,
     to the said tiring-house.

     _Flooring._ And all the floors of the said galleries,
     stories, and stage to be boarded with good and sufficient
     new deal boards, of the whole thickness where need shall be.

     _Columns._ All the principal and main posts of the said
     frame and stage forward shall be square, and wrought
     pilaster-wise, with carved proportions called satyrs to be
     placed and set on the top of every of the said posts.

     _Roof._ And the said frame, stage, and staircases to be
     covered with tile.

     _Miscellaneous._ To be in all other contrivations,
     conveyances, fashions, thing and things, effected, finished,
     and done, according to the manner and fashion of the said
     house called the Globe.

[Footnote 444: For the full document see Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p.
4.]

It is rather unfortunate for us that the building was to be in so many
respects a copy of the Globe, for that deprives us of further detailed
specifications; and it is unfortunate, too, that the plan or drawing
showing the arrangement of the stage was not preserved with the rest
of the document. Yet we are able to derive much exact information
from the contract; and with this information, at least two modern
architects have made reconstructions of the building.[445]

[Footnote 445: See the Bibliography. A model of the Fortune by Mr.
W.H. Godfrey is preserved in the Dramatic Museum of Columbia
University in New York City, and a duplicate is in the Museum of
European Culture at the University of Illinois. For a description of
the model see the _Architect and Builders' Journal_ (London), August
16, 1911.]

No representation of the exterior of the Fortune has come down to us.
In the so-called Ryther _Map of London_, there is, to be sure, what
seems to be a crude representation of the playhouse (see page 278);
but if this is really intended for the Fortune, it does little more
than mark the location. Yet one can readily picture in his imagination
the playhouse--a plastered structure, eighty feet square and
approximately forty feet high,[446] with small windows marking the
galleries, a turret and flagpole surmounting the red-tiled roof, and
over the main entrance a sign representing Dame Fortune:

     I'le rather stand here,
     Like a statue in the fore-front of your house,
     For ever, like the picture of Dame Fortune
     Before the Fortune Playhouse.[447]

[Footnote 446: The three galleries (twelve, eleven, and nine feet,
respectively) were thirty-two feet in height; but to this must be
added the elevation of the first gallery above the yard, the space
occupied by the ceiling and flooring of the several galleries, and,
finally, the roof.]

[Footnote 447: Thomas Heywood, _The English Traveller_ (1633), ed.
Pearson, IV, 84. We do not know when the play was written, but the
reference is probably to the New Fortune, built in 1623. Heywood
generally uses "picture" in the sense of "statue."]

[Illustration: THE FORTUNE PLAYHOUSE (?)

The curious structure with the flag may be intended to mark the site
of the Fortune. (From the so-called Ryther _Map of London_, drawn
about 1630-40.)]

Nor is there any pictorial representation of the interior of the
playhouse. In the absence of such, I offer the reader a verbal picture
of the interior as seen from the stage during the performance of a
play. In Middleton and Dekker's _The Roaring Girl_, acted at the
Fortune, Sir Alexander shows to his friends his magnificent house.
Advancing to the middle of the stage, and pointing out over the
building, he asks them how they like it:

     _Goshawk._ I like the prospect best.

     _Laxton._                           See how 't is furnished!

     _Sir Davy._ A very fair sweet room.

     _Sir Alex._                         Sir Davy Dapper,
     The furniture that doth adorn this room
     Cost many a fair grey groat ere it came here;
     But good things are most cheap when they're most dear.
     Nay, when you look into my galleries,
     How bravely they're trimm'd up, you all shall swear
     You're highly pleas'd to see what's set down there:
     Stories of men and women, mix'd together,
     Fair ones with foul, like sunshine in wet weather;
     Within one square a thousand heads are laid,
     So close that all of heads the room seems made;
     As many faces there, fill'd with blithe looks
     Shew like the promising titles of new books
     Writ merrily, the readers being their own eyes,
     Which seem to move and to give plaudities;
     And here and there, whilst with obsequious ears
     Throng'd heaps do listen, a cut-purse thrusts and leers
     With hawk's eyes for his prey; I need not shew him;
     By a hanging, villainous look yourselves may know him,
     The face is drawn so rarely: then, sir, below,
     The very floor, as 't were, waves to and fro,
     And, like a floating island, seems to move
     Upon a sea bound in with shores above.

     _All._ These sights are excellent![448]

[Footnote 448: _The Roaring Girl_, I, i. Pointed out by M.W. Sampson,
_Modern Language Notes_, June, 1915.]

A closer view of this audience--"men and women, mix'd together, fair
ones with foul"--is furnished by one of the letters of Orazio
Busino,[449] the chaplain of the Venetian Embassy, who visited the
Fortune playhouse shortly after his arrival in London in 1617:

     The other day, therefore, they determined on taking me to
     one of the many theatres where plays are performed, and we
     saw a tragedy, which diverted me very little, especially as
     I cannot understand a word of English, though some little
     amusement may be derived from gazing at the very costly
     dresses of the actors, and from the various interludes of
     instrumental music and dancing and singing; but the best
     treat was to see such a crowd of nobility so very well
     arrayed that they looked like so many princes, listening as
     silently and soberly as possible. These theatres are
     frequented by a number of respectable and handsome ladies,
     who come freely and seat themselves among the men without
     the slightest hesitation. On the evening in question his
     Excellency [the Venetian Ambassador] and the Secretary were
     pleased to play me a trick by placing me amongst a bevy of
     young women. Scarcely was I seated ere a very elegant dame,
     but in a mask, came and placed herself beside me.... She
     asked me for my address, both in French and English; and on
     my turning a deaf ear, she determined to honour me by
     showing me some fine diamonds on her fingers, repeatedly
     taking off no fewer than three gloves, which were worn one
     over the other.... This lady's bodice was of yellow satin
     richly embroidered, her petticoat of gold tissue with
     stripes, her robe of red velvet with a raised pile, lined
     with yellow muslin, with broad stripes of pure gold. She
     wore an apron of point lace of various patterns; her
     head-tire was highly perfumed, and the collar of white satin
     beneath the delicately-wrought ruff struck me as extremely
     pretty.

[Footnote 449: "Diaries and Despatches of the Venetian Embassy at the
Court of King James I, in the Years 1617, 1618. Translated by Rawdon
Brown." (_The Quarterly Review_, CII, 416.) It is true that the notice
of this letter in _The Calendar of State Papers, Venetian_, XV, 67,
makes no mention of the Fortune; but the writer in _The Quarterly
Review_, who had before him the entire manuscript, states positively
that the Fortune was the playhouse visited. I have not been able to
examine the manuscript itself, which is preserved in Venice.]

That the players were prepared to entertain distinguished visitors
both during the performance and after is shown by a letter from John
Chamberlain, July 21, 1621, to Sir Dudley Carleton. "The Spanish
Ambassador," he writes, "is grown so affable and familiar, that on
Monday, with his whole train, he went to a common play at the Fortune
in Golding Lane; and the players (not to be overcome with courtesy)
made him a banquet, when the play was done, in the garden
adjoining."[450]

[Footnote 450: Nichols, _The Progresses of King James_, IV, 67.]

Upon its completion the new building was occupied by the Admiral's
Men, for whom it had been erected. This troupe of players, long famous
under the leadership of Edward Alleyn, was now one of the two
companies authorized by the Privy Council, and the chief rival of the
Chamberlain's Men at the Globe. Henslowe was managing their affairs,
and numerous poets were writing plays for them. They continued to act
at the Fortune under the name, "The Admiral's Men," until May 5, 1603,
when, as Henslowe put it, they "left off play now at the King's
coming."[451]

[Footnote 451: Greg, _Henslowe's Diary_, I, 174.]

After a short interruption on account of the plague, during a part of
which time they traveled in the provinces, the Admiral's Men were
taken under the patronage of the youthful Henry, Prince of Wales, and
in the early spring of 1604 they resumed playing at the Fortune under
their new name, "The Prince's Servants."

[Illustration: EDWARD ALLEYN

(Reproduced by permission from a painting in the Dulwich Picture
Gallery; photograph by Emery Walker, Ltd.)]

For a time all went well. But from July, 1607, until December, 1609,
the plague was severe in London, and acting was seriously interrupted.
During this long period of hardship for the players, Henslowe and
Alleyn seem to have made an attempt to hold the troupe together by
admitting its chief members to a partnership in the building, just as
the Burbages had formerly admitted their chief players to a
partnership in the Globe. At this time there were in the troupe eight
sharers, or chief actors.[452] Henslowe and Alleyn, it seems, proposed
to allot to these eight actors one-fourth of the Fortune property. In
other words, according to this scheme, there were to be thirty-two
sharers in the new Fortune organization, Alleyn and Henslowe together
holding three-fourths of the stock, or twelve shares each, and the
eight actors together holding one-fourth of the stock, or one share
each. A document was actually drawn up by Henslowe and Alleyn, with
the name of the leader of the Fortune troupe, Thomas Downton,
inserted;[453] but since the document was not executed, the scheme,
it is to be presumed, was unsuccessful--at least, we hear nothing
further about it.[454]

[Footnote 452: See the Company's Patent of 1606, in The Malone
Society's _Collections_, I, 268.]

[Footnote 453: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 13.]

[Footnote 454: For an ordinance concerning "lewd jiggs" at the Fortune
in 1612, see _Middlesex County Records_, II, 83.]

On November 6, 1612, the death of the young Prince of Wales left the
company without a "service." On January 4, 1613, however, a new patent
was issued to the players, placing them under the protection of the
Palsgrave, or Elector Palatine, after which date they are known as
"The Palsgrave's Men."

On January 9, 1616, Henslowe, so long associated with the company and
the Fortune, died; and a year later his widow, Agnes, followed him. As
a result the entire Fortune property passed into the hands of Alleyn.
But Alleyn, apparently, did not care to be worried with the management
of the playhouse; so on October 31, 1618, he leased it to the
Palsgrave's Men for a period of thirty-one years, at an annual rental
of £200 and two rundlets of wine at Christmas.[455]

[Footnote 455: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 27; Young, _The History of
Dulwich College_, II, 260.]

On April 24, 1620, Alleyn executed a deed of grant of lands by which
he transferred the Fortune, along with various other properties, to
Dulwich College.[456] But he retained during his lifetime the whole of
the revenues therefrom, and he specifically reserved to himself the
right to grant leases for any length of years. The transference of
the title, therefore, in no way affected the playhouse, and Alleyn
continued to manage the property as he had been accustomed to do in
the past.

[Footnote 456: The deed is printed by Young, _op. cit._, I, 50. The
Fortune property, I believe, is still a part of the endowment of the
college.]

His services in this capacity were soon needed, for on December 9,
1621, the Fortune was burned to the ground. Alleyn records the event
in his _Diary_ thus: "_Memorandum._ This night at 12 of the clock the
Fortune was burnt." In a less laconic fashion John Chamberlain writes
to Sir Dudley Carleton: "On Sunday night here was a great fire at the
Fortune in Golding-Lane, the fairest playhouse in this town. It was
quite burnt down in two hours, and all their apparel and playbooks
lost, whereby those poor companions are quite undone."[457]

[Footnote 457: Birch, _The Court and Times of James the First_, II,
280. Howes, in his continuation of Stow's _Annals_ (1631), p. 1004,
attributes the fire to "negligence of a candle," but gives no
details.]

The "poor companions" thus referred to were, of course, the players,
who lost not only their stock of apparel, playbooks, and stage
furniture, but also their lease, which assured them of a home. Alleyn,
however, was quite able and ready to reconstruct the building for
them; and we find him on May 20, 1621, already organizing a syndicate
to finance "a new playhouse" which "there is intended to be erected
and set up." The stock of the new enterprise he divided into twelve
equal shares, which he disposed of, as the custom was, in the form of
whole and half shares, reserving for himself only one share.[458] The
plot of ground on which the old playhouse stood he leased to the
several sharers for a period of fifty-one years at an annual rental of
£10 13_s._ 10_d._ a share, with the express condition that the
building to be erected thereon should never be used for any purpose
other than the acting of stage-plays. The sharers then proceeded to
the task of constructing their playhouse. It was proposed to make the
new building larger[459] and handsomer than the old one, and to build
it of brick[460] with a tiled roof--possibly an attempt at fireproof
construction. It was decided, also, to abandon the square shape in
favor of the older and more logical circular shape. Wright, in his
_Historia Histrionica_, describes the New Fortune as "a large, round,
brick building,"[461] and Howes assures us that it was "farre fairer"
than the old playhouse.[462] We do not know how much the building
cost. At the outset each sharer was assessed £83 6_s._ 8_d._ towards
the cost of construction,[463] which would produce exactly £1000; but
the first assessment was not necessarily all that the sharers were
called upon to pay. For example, when the Globe was rebuilt each
sharer was at first assessed "£50 or £60," but before the building was
finished each had paid more than £100. So the Fortune may well have
cost more than the original estimate of £1000. In 1656 two expert
assessors appointed by the authorities of Dulwich College to examine
the playhouse declared that "the said building did in our opinions
cost building about two thousand pound."[464] This estimate is
probably not far wrong. The playhouse was completed in June or July of
1623, and was again occupied by the Palsgrave's Men.[465]

[Footnote 458: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, pp. 28-30; 112. The names of
the sharers are not inspiring: Thomas Sparks, merchant tailor; William
Gwalter, innholder; John Fisher, barber-surgeon; Thomas Wigpitt,
bricklayer; etc.]

[Footnote 459: Prynne, _Histriomastix_, Epistle Dedicatory.]

[Footnote 460: The writer of the manuscript notes in the Phillipps
copy of Stow's _Annals_ (see _The Academy_, October 28, 1882, p. 314),
who is not trustworthy, says that the Fortune was burned down in 1618,
and "built again with brick work on the outside," from which Mr.
Wallace assumed that he meant that the building was merely
brick-veneered. If the writer meant this he was in error. See the
report of the commission appointed by Dulwich College to examine the
building (Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 95).]

[Footnote 461: Hazlitt's Dodsley, XV, 408.]

[Footnote 462: Stow, _Annals_, 1631.]

[Footnote 463: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 29. Half-shares were £41
13_s._ 4_d._, which Murray (_English Dramatic Companies_) confuses
with whole shares.]

[Footnote 464: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 95. This estimate was made
after the interior of the building had been "pulled down," and hence
refers merely to the cost of erection.]

[Footnote 465: For an account of "a dangerous and great riot committed
in Whitecross Street at the Fortune Playhouse" in May, 1626, see
Jeaffreson, _Middlesex County Records_, III, 161-63.]

On November 25, 1626, Edward Alleyn died, and the Fortune property
came into the full possession of Dulwich College. This, however, did
not in any way affect the syndicate of the Fortune housekeepers, who
held from Alleyn a lease of the property until 1672. According to the
terms of this lease each of the twelve sharers had to pay a yearly
rental of £10 13_s._ 10_d._; this rental now merely went to the
College instead of to Alleyn.

In 1631 the Palsgrave's Men seem to have fallen on hard times; at any
rate, they had to give up the Fortune, and the playhouse was taken
over, about December, by the King's Revels, who had been playing at
the small private playhouse of Salisbury Court.[466] The Palsgrave's
Men were reorganized, taken under the patronage of the infant Prince
Charles, and placed in the Salisbury Court Playhouse just vacated by
the King's Revels.

[Footnote 466: For details of this move see the chapter on the
Salisbury Court Playhouse.]

In 1635 there was a general shifting of houses on the part of the
London companies. The King's Revels left the Fortune and returned to
their old quarters at Salisbury Court; the Prince Charles's Men, who
had been at Salisbury Court, moved to the Red Bull; and the Red Bull
Company transferred itself to the Fortune.

The stay of the Red Bull Company at the Fortune was not happy. Towards
the end of 1635 the plague was seriously interfering with their
performance of plays;[467] and on May 10, 1636, the Privy Council
closed all theatres, and kept them closed, except for a few days,
until October 2, 1637.[468] This long inhibition not only impoverished
the actors and drove them into the country, but came near ruining the
lessees of the Fortune, who, having no revenue from the playhouse,
could not make their quarterly payments to the College. On September
4, 1637, the Court of Assistants at Dulwich noted that the lessees
were behind in their rent to the extent of £132 12_s._ 11_d._; "and,"
the court adds, "there will be a quarter's rent more at Michaelmas
next [i.e., in twenty-five days], which is doubted will be also
unpaid, amounting to £33 1_s._ 4_d._"[469] The excuse of the lessees
for their failure to pay was the "restraint from playing."[470]

[Footnote 467: Young, _The History of Dulwich College_, I, 114.]

[Footnote 468: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 391, 392;
Malone, _Variorum_, III, 239.]

[Footnote 469: Young, _The History of Dulwich College_, I, 114.]

[Footnote 470: The College appealed to the Lord Keeper, who on January
26 ordered the payment of the sum. But two years later, February,
1640, we find the College again petitioning the Lord Keeper to order
the lessees of the Fortune property to pay an arrearage of £104 14_s._
5_d._ See Collier, _The Alleyn Papers_, pp. 95-98.]

This "restraint" was removed on October 2, 1637, and the players
resumed their performances at the Fortune. But in the early summer of
1639 they fell victims to another bit of ill luck even more serious
than their long inhibition. In a letter of Edmond Rossingham, dated
May 8, 1639, we read: "Thursday last the players of the Fortune were
fined £1000 for setting up an altar, a bason, and two candlesticks,
and bowing down before it upon the stage; and although they allege it
was an old play revived, and an altar to the heathen gods, yet it was
apparent that this play was revived on purpose in contempt of the
ceremonies of the Church."[471]

[Footnote 471: Printed in _The Calendar of State Papers, Domestic,
1639_, p. 140.]

During the Easter period, 1640, the players returned to their old
quarters at the Red Bull. After their unhappy experiences at the
Fortune they were apparently glad to occupy again their former home.
The event is celebrated in a Prologue entitled _Upon the Removing of
the Late Fortune Players to the Bull_, written by John Tatham, and
printed in _Fancies Theatre_ (1640):[472]

     Here, gentlemen, our anchor's fixt; and we
     Disdaining _Fortune's_ mutability,
     Expect your kind acceptance.

[Footnote 472: The Prologue is printed in full by Malone, _Variorum_,
III, 79.]

The writer then hurls some uncomplimentary remarks at the Fortune,
observing complacently: "We have ne'er an actor here has mouth enough
to tear language by the ears." It is true that during these later
years the Fortune had fallen into ill repute with persons of good
taste. But so had the Red Bull, and the actors there had no right to
throw stones. Apparently the large numbers that could be accommodated
in the great public theatres, and the quality of the audience
attracted by the low price of admission, made noise and rant
inevitable.[473] As chief sinners in this respect the Fortune and the
Red Bull are usually mentioned together.

[Footnote 473: Not even the Globe was entirely free from this; see the
Prologue to _The Doubtful Heir_.]

Upon the departure of the Red Bull Company, the Prince Charles's Men
(originally the Admiral's, and later the Palsgrave's Men), who had
been occupying the Red Bull, came to the Fortune.[474] Thus after an
absence of nearly nine years, the old company (though sadly altered in
personnel), for which the Fortune had been built, returned to its home
to remain there until the end.

[Footnote 474: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 79.]

On September 2, 1642, the Long Parliament passed an ordinance
suppressing all stage-plays; but for a time the actors at the Fortune
seem to have continued their performances. In the fifth number of _The
Weekly Account_, September 27-October 4, 1643, we find among other
entries: "The players' misfortune at the Fortune in Golding Lane,
their players' clothes being seized upon in the time of a play by
authority from the Parliament."[475] This, doubtless, led to the
closing of the playhouse.

[Footnote 475: _The Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1643_, p.
564.]

After the Fortune was thus closed, the lessees were in a predicament.
By a specific clause in their lease they were prevented from using the
building for any purpose other than the acting of stage-plays, and now
Parliament by a specific ordinance had forbidden the acting of
stage-plays. Hence the lessees, some of whom were poor persons, being
unable to make any profit from the building, refused to pay any rent.
The College entered suit against them, and exhausted all legal means
to make them pay, but without success.[476]

[Footnote 476: For an interesting comment on the situation, especially
in the year 1649, see _Notes and Queries_ (series X), I, 85.]

When the ordinance prohibiting plays expired in January, 1648, the
actors promptly reopened the Fortune, and we learn from _The Kingdom's
Weekly Intelligencer_ that on January 27 no fewer than one hundred and
twenty coaches were crowded about the building. But on February 9
Parliament passed a new and even more stringent ordinance against
dramatic performances, placing penalties not only upon the players,
but also upon the spectators. This for ever put an end to acting at
the Fortune.

In 1649 the arrears of the lessees having reached the sum of £974
5_s._ 8_d._, the authorities of the College took formal possession of
the playhouse.

From certain manuscript notes[477] entered in the Phillipps copy of
Stow's _Annals_ (1631), we learn that "a company of soldiers, set on
by the sectaries of these sad times, on Saturday, the 24 day of March,
1649," sacked the Salisbury Court Playhouse, the Phoenix, and the
Fortune. The note states that the Fortune was "pulled down on the
inside by the soldiers"; that is, the stage and the seats were
dismantled[478] so as to render the building unusable for dramatic
purposes.

[Footnote 477: Printed in _The Academy_, October 28, 1882, p. 314.]

[Footnote 478: See _The Journals of the House of Commons_, July 26,
1648.]

In the following year, 1650, the inhabitants of the Parish of St.
Giles "represent that they are poor, and unable to build a place of
worship for themselves, but think it would be convenient if that large
building commonly known by the name of the Fortune Playhouse might be
allotted and set apart for that purpose." The request was not
granted.[479]

[Footnote 479: Warner, _Catalogue_, XXXI; Greg, _Henslowe's Diary_,
II, 65.]

By July, 1656, the condition of the old playhouse was such that the
Masters and Wardens of the College appointed two experts to view the
building and make recommendations. They reported "that by reason the
lead hath been taken from the said building, the tiling not secured,
and the foundation of the said playhouse not kept in good repair,
great part of the said playhouse is fallen to the ground, the timber
thereof much decayed and rotten, and the brick walls so rent and torn
that the whole structure is in no condition capable of repair, but in
great danger of falling, to the hazard of passengers' lives"; and they
add: "The charge for demolishing the same will be chargeable and
dangerous. Upon these considerations our opinion is that the said
materials may not be more worth than eighty pound."[480]

[Footnote 480: The entire report is printed in Greg, _Henslowe
Papers_, p. 95.]

The authorities of Dulwich took no action on this report. However, on
March 5, 1660, they ordered that the property be leased, making a
casual reference to the playhouse as "at present so ruinous that part
thereof is already fallen down, and the rest will suddenly follow."
Accordingly, they inserted in the _Mercurius Politicus_ of February
14-21, 1661, the following advertisement: "The Fortune Playhouse,
situate between Whitecross Street and Golding Lane, in the parish of
St. Giles, Cripplegate, with the ground thereto belonging, is to be
let to be built upon."[481]

[Footnote 481: Discovered by Stevens, and printed in Malone,
_Variorum_, III, 55, note 5. Mr. W.J. Lawrence, _Archiv für das
Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen_ (1914), p. 314, says
that the date of this advertisement is 1660. But the same
advertisement is reprinted by H.R. Plomer in _Notes and Queries_
(series X), VI, 107, from _The Kingdom's Intelligencer_ of March 18,
1661.]

No one seems to have cared to lease the property; so on March 16,
following, the materials of the building were sold to one William
Beaven for the sum of £75;[482] and in the records of the College,
March 4, 1662, we read that "the said playhouse ... is since totally
demolished."[483]

[Footnote 482: Young, _The History of Dulwich College_, II, 265.]

[Footnote 483: Collier, _The Alleyn Papers_, p. 101. I am aware of the
fact that there are references to later incidents at the Fortune (for
example, the statement that it was visited by officers in November,
1682, in an attempt to suppress secret conventicles that had long been
held there), but in view of the unimpeachable documentary evidence
cited above (in 1662 the College authorities again refer to it as "the
late ruinous and now demolished Fortune playhouse"), we must regard
these later references either as inaccurate, or as referring to
another building later erected in the same neighborhood. The so-called
picture of the Fortune, printed in Wilkinson's _Londina Illustrata_,
and often reproduced by modern scholars, cannot possibly be that of
the playhouse erected by Alleyn. For an interesting surmise as to the
history of this later building see W.J. Lawrence, _Restoration Stage
Nurseries_, in _Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und
Literaturen_ (1914), p. 301.]

CHAPTER XIV

THE RED BULL

The builder of the Red Bull Playhouse[484] was "one Aaron Holland,
yeoman," of whom we know little more than that he "was utterly
unlearned and illiterate, not being able to read."[485] He had leased
"for many years" from Anne Beddingfield, "wife and administratrix of
the goods and chattles of Christopher Beddingfield, deceased," a small
plot of land, known by the name of "The Red Bull." This plot of land,
which contained one house, was situated "at the upper end of St.
John's Street" in the Parish of St. James, Clerkenwell, the exact
location being marked by "Red Bull Yard" in Ogilby and Morgan's _Map
of London_, printed in 1677. The property was not much more distant
from the heart of the city than the Fortune property, and since it
could be easily reached through St. John's Gate, it was quite as well
situated for dramatic purposes as was the Fortune.

[Footnote 484: This playhouse is not to be confused with the famous
Bull Tavern in Bishopsgate Street, for many years used as a theatre.]

[Footnote 485: These statements are based upon the Woodford _v._
Holland documents, first discovered by Collier, later by Greenstreet,
and finally printed in full by Wallace, _Three London Theatres_.]

[Illustration: THE SITE OF THE RED BULL PLAYHOUSE

The site is indicated by Red Bull Yard. (From Ogilby and Morgan's _Map
of London_, 1677.)]

In or before 1605[486] Holland erected on this plot of ground "a
playhouse for acting and setting forth plays, comedies, and
tragedies." We may suspect that he did this at the instigation of the
Earl of Worcester's Men, who had just been taken under the patronage
of the Queen, and had been selected by the Privy Council as one of
three companies to be "allowed." The warrant of the Privy Council,
April 9, 1604, orders the Lord Mayor to "permit and suffer the three
companies of players to the King, Queen, and Prince publickly to
exercise their plays in their several and usual houses for that
purpose, and no other, viz. the Globe, situate in Maiden Lane on the
Bankside in the county of Surrey, the Fortune in Golding Lane, and the
Curtain, in Holywell."[487] Among these three companies, as Dekker
tells us, there was much rivalry.[488] No doubt the Queen's Men,
forced to occupy the old Curtain Playhouse, suffered by comparison
with the King's Men at the handsome Globe, and the Prince's Men at the
new and magnificent Fortune; and this, I suspect, furnished the
immediate cause for the erection of the Red Bull. In a draft of a
license to the Queen's Men, made late in 1603 or early in 1604, the
fact is disclosed that the actors, of whom Thomas Greene was the
leader, were contemplating a new playhouse. The company was licensed
to use any "playhouse not used by others, by the said Thomas Greene
elected, _or by him hereafter to be built_."[489] Whether or no Greene
and his fellows had some understanding with Holland, we cannot say.
But in 1605 we find Holland disposing of one share in the new
playhouse to Thomas Swynnerton, a member of Queen Anne's Troupe; and
he may at the same time have disposed of other shares to other
members, for his transaction with Swynnerton comes to our notice only
through a subsequent lawsuit. The words used in the documents
connected with the suit clearly suggest that the playhouse was
completed at the time of the purchase. From the fact that Holland
granted "a seventh part of the said playhouse and galleries, with a
gatherer's place thereto belonging or appertaining, unto the said
Thomas Swynnerton for diverse years,"[490] it appears that the
ownership of the playhouse had been divided into seven shares, some of
which, according to custom, may have been subdivided into half-shares.

[Footnote 486: Sir Sidney Lee (_A Life of William Shakespeare_, p. 60)
says that the Red Bull was "built about 1600." He gives no evidence,
and the statement seems to be merely a repetition from earlier and
unauthoritative writers.]

[Footnote 487: The original warrant is preserved at Dulwich, and
printed by Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 61. Cf. also Dasent, _Acts of
the Privy Council_, XXXII, 511.]

[Footnote 488: _Raven's Almanack_ (1609); Dekker's _Works_ (ed.
Grosart), IV, 210.]

[Footnote 489: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 265.]

[Footnote 490: Wallace, _Three London Theatres_, p. 18.]

The name of the playhouse, as in the case of the Rose and the Curtain,
was taken from the name of the estate on which it was erected. Of the
building we have no pictorial representation; the picture in Kirkman's
_The Wits_ (1672), so often reproduced by scholars as "The Interior
of the Red Bull," has nothing whatever to do with that building. The
Kirkman picture shows a small enclosed room, with a narrow stage
illuminated by chandeliers and footlights; the Red Bull, on the
contrary, was a large, open-air building, with its stage illuminated
by the sun. It is thus described in Wright's _Historia Histrionica_
(1699): "The Globe, Fortune, and Bull were large houses, and lay
partly open to the weather."[491] Before its door was displayed a sign
on which was painted a red bull; hence the playhouse is sometimes
referred to simply as "at the sign of the Red Bull."

[Footnote 491: Hazlitt's Dodsley, XV, 408. If the Kirkham picture
represents the interior of any playhouse, it more likely represents
the Cockpit, which was standing at the time of the Restoration.]

The building, as I have indicated, seems to have been completed in or
before 1605; but exactly when the Queen's Men moved thither from the
Curtain is not clear. The patent issued to the company on April 15,
1609, gives them license to play "within their now usual houses,
called the Red Bull in Clerkenwell, and the Curtain in Holywell."[492]
Since they would hardly make use of two big public playhouses at the
same time, we might suspect that they were then arranging for the
transfer. Moreover, Heath, in his _Epigrams_, printed in 1610 but
probably written a year or two earlier, refers to the three important
public playhouses of the day as the Globe, the Fortune, and the
Curtain. Yet, that the Queen's Men were playing regularly at the Red
Bull in 1609 is clear from Dekker's _Raven's Almanack_,[493] and they
may have been playing there at intervals after 1605.

[Footnote 492: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 270.]

[Footnote 493: Dekker's _Works_ (ed. Grosart), IV, 210-11. I cannot
understand why Murray (_English Dramatic Companies_, I, 152-53) and
others say that Dekker refers to the Fortune, the Globe, and the
Curtain. His puns are clear: "_Fortune_ must favour some ... the
_whole world_ must stick to others ... and a third faction must fight
like _Bulls_."]

Dekker, in the pamphlet just mentioned, predicted "a deadly war"
between the Globe, the Fortune, and the Red Bull. And he had good
reasons for believing that the Queen's Men could successfully compete
with the two other companies, for it numbered among its players some
of the best actors of the day. The leader of the troupe was Thomas
Greene, now chiefly known for the amusing comedy named, after him,
_Greene's Tu Quoque_, but then known to all Londoners as the cleverest
comedian since Tarleton and Kempe:

     _Scat._ Yes, faith, brother, if it please you; let's go see
     a play at the Globe.

     _But._ I care not; any whither, so the clown have a part;
     for, i' faith, I am nobody without a fool.

     _Gera._ Why, then, we'll go to the Red Bull; they say
     Green's a good clown.[494]

[Footnote 494: _Greene's Tu Quoque_, Hazlitt's Dodsley, XI, 240. In
May, 1610, there was "a notable outrage at the Playhouse called the
Red Bull"; see _Middlesex County Records_, II, 64-65.]

The chief playwright for the troupe was the learned and industrious
Thomas Heywood, who, like Shakespeare, was also an actor and full
sharer in his company. Charles Lamb, who was an ardent admirer of
Heywood's plays, enthusiastically styled him "a prose Shakespeare";
and Wordsworth, with hardly less enthusiasm, declared him to have been
"a great man."

In 1612 Thomas Greene died, and the leadership of the troupe was taken
over by Christopher Beeston, a man well known in the theatrical life
of the time. Late in February, 1617, Beeston transferred the Queen's
Men to his new playhouse in Drury Lane, the Cockpit; in little more
than a week the sacking of the Cockpit drove them back to their old
quarters, where they remained until the following June. But even after
this they seem not to have abandoned the Red Bull entirely.

Edward Alleyn, in his _Account Book_, writes: "Oct. 1, 1617, I came to
London in the coach and went to the Red Bull"; and again under the
date of October 3: "I went to the Red Bull, and received for _The
Younger Brother_ but £3 6_s._ 4_d._"[495] What these two passages mean
it is hard to say, for they constitute the only references to the Red
Bull in all the Alleyn papers; but they do not necessarily imply, as
some have thought, that Alleyn was part owner of the playhouse;
possibly he was merely selling to the Red Bull Company the manuscript
of an old play.[496]

[Footnote 495: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 223; Young, _The History of
Dulwich College_, II, 51; Warner, _Catalogue_, p. 165; Collier,
_Memoirs of Edward Alleyn_, p. 107.]

[Footnote 496: The play is not otherwise known; a play with this
title, however, was entered on the Stationers' Register in 1653.]

At the death of Queen Anne, March 2, 1619, the company was deprived of
its "service," and after attending her funeral on May 13, was
dissolved. Christopher Beeston joined Prince Charles's Men, and
established that troupe at the Cockpit;[497] the other leading members
of Queen Anne's Men seem to have continued at the Red Bull under the
simple title "The Red Bull Company."

[Footnote 497: For details of this change, and of the quarrels that
followed, see the chapter on the Cockpit.]

In April, 1622, a feltmaker's apprentice named John Gill,[498] while
seated on the Red Bull stage, was accidentally injured by a sword in
the hands of one of the actors, Richard Baxter. A few days later Gill
called upon his fellow-apprentices to help him secure damages. In the
forenoon he sent the following letter, now somewhat defaced by time,
to Baxter:

     Mr. Blackster [_sic_]. So it is that upon Monday last it ...
     to be upon your stage, intending no hurt to any one, where I
     was grievously wounded in the head, as may appear; and in
     the surgeon's hands, who is to have x_s._ for the cure; and
     in the meantime my Master to give me maintenance ... [to my]
     great loss and hindrance; and therefore in kindness I desire
     you to give me satisfaction, seeing I was wounded by your
     own hand ... weapon. If you refuse, then look to yourself
     and avoid the danger which shall this day ensue upon your
     company and house. For ... as you can, for I am a
     feltmaker's prentice, and have made it known to at least one
     hundred and forty of our ... who are all here present, ready
     to take revenge upon you unless willingly you will give
     present satisfaction. Consider there ... think fitting. And
     as you have a care for your own safeties, so let me have
     answer forthwith.[499]

[Footnote 498: The name is also given, incorrectly, as Richard Gill.]

[Footnote 499: Jeaffreson, _Middlesex County Records_, II, 165-66;
175-76.]

Baxter turned the letter over to the authorities of Middlesex (hence
its preservation), who took steps to guard the playhouse and actors.
The only result was that prentices "to the number of one hundred
persons on the said day riotously assembled at Clerkenwell, to the
terror and disquiet of persons dwelling there."

On July 8, 1622, the Red Bull Company secured a license "to bring up
children in the quality and exercise of playing comedies, histories,
interludes, morals, pastorals, stage-plays and such like ... to be
called by the name of the Children of the Revels."[500] The Children
of the Revels occupied the Red Bull until the summer of the following
year, 1623, when they were dissolved. The last reference to them is in
the Herbert Manuscript under the date of May 10, 1623.[501]

[Footnote 500: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 62; The Malone Society's
_Collections_, I, 284.]

[Footnote 501: Chalmers, _Supplemental Apology_, p. 213.]

In August, 1623, we find the Red Bull occupied by Prince Charles's
Men,[502] who, after the dissolution of the Revels Company, had moved
thither from the less desirable Curtain.

[Footnote 502: _Ibid._, pp. 213-14.]

Two years later, in 1625, Prince Charles became King, and took under
his patronage his father's troupe, the King's Men. Some of the
members of the Prince Charles Troupe were transferred to the King's
Men, and the rest constituted a nucleus about which a new company was
organized, known simply as "The Red Bull Company."

About this time, it seems, the playhouse was rebuilt and enlarged. The
Fortune had been destroyed by fire in 1621, and had just been rebuilt
in a larger and handsomer form. In 1625 one W.C., in _London's
Lamentation for her Sins_, writes: "Yet even then, Oh Lord, were the
theatres magnified and enlarged."[503] This doubtless refers to the
rebuilding of the Fortune and the Red Bull. Prynne specifically states
in his _Histriomastix_ (1633) that the Fortune and Red Bull had been
"lately reedified [and] enlarged." But nothing further is known of the
"re-edification and enlargement" of the Red Bull.

[Footnote 503: Quoted by Collier, _The History of English Dramatic
Poetry_ (1879), III, 121.]

After its enlargement the playhouse seems to have acquired a
reputation for noise and vulgarity. Carew, in 1630, speaks of it as a
place where "noise prevails" and a "drowth of wit," and yet as always
crowded with people while the better playhouses stood empty. In _The
Careless Shepherdess_, acted at Salisbury Court, we read:

     And I will hasten to the money-box,
     And take my shilling out again;
     I'll go to the Bull, or Fortune, and there see
     A play for two-pence, and a jig to boot.[504]

[Footnote 504: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 70.]

In 1638, a writer of verses prefixed to Randolph's _Poems_ speaks of
the "base plots" acted with great applause at the Red Bull.[505] James
Wright informs us, in his _Historia Histrionica_, that the Red Bull
and the Fortune were "mostly frequented by citizens and the meaner
sort of people."[506] And Edmund Gayton, in his _Pleasant Notes_,
wittily remarks: "I have heard that the poets of the Fortune and Red
Bull had always a mouth-measure for their actors (who were terrible
tear-throats) and made their lines proportionable to their compass,
which were sesquipedales, a foot and a half."[507] Probably the ill
repute of the large public playhouses at this time was chiefly due to
the rise of private playhouses in the city.

[Footnote 505: Randolph's _Works_ (ed. Hazlitt), p. 504.]

[Footnote 506: Hazlitt's Dodsley, XV, 407.]

[Footnote 507: _Pleasant Notes on Don Quixote_, p. 24.]

In 1635 the Red Bull Company moved to the Fortune, and Prince
Charles's Men occupied the Red Bull.

Five years later, at Easter, 1640, Prince Charles's Men moved back to
the Fortune, and the Red Bull Company returned to its old home. In a
prologue written to celebrate the event,[508] the members of the
company declared:

     Here, gentlemen, our anchor's fix't.

[Footnote 508: J. Tatham, _Fancies Theatre_. For a fuller discussion
of the shifting of companies in 1635 and 1640 see the chapter on "The
Fortune."]

This proved true, for the company remained at the Red Bull until
Parliament passed the ordinance of 1642 closing the playhouses and
forbidding all dramatic performances. The ordinance, which was to hold
good during the continuance of the civil war, was renewed in 1647,
with January 1, 1648, set as the date of its expiration. Through some
oversight a new ordinance was not immediately passed, and the actors
were prompt to take advantage of the fact. They threw open the
playhouses, and the Londoners flocked in great crowds to hear plays
again. At the Red Bull, so we learn from the newspaper called _Perfect
Occurrences_, was given a performance of Beaumont and Fletcher's _Wit
Without Money_.

But on February 9, 1648, Parliament made up for its oversight by
passing an exceptionally severe ordinance against dramatic
exhibitions, directing that actors be publicly flogged, and that each
spectator be fined the sum of five shillings.

During the dark years that followed, the Red Bull, in spite of this
ordinance, was occasionally used by venturous actors. James Wright, in
his _Historia Histrionica_, tells us that upon the outbreak of the war
the various London actors had gone "into the King's army, and, like
good men and true, served their old master, though in a different, yet
more honourable capacity. Robinson was killed at the taking of a place
(I think Basing House) by Harrison.... Mohun was a captain.... Hart
was cornet of the same troop, and Shatterel quartermaster. Allen, of
the Cockpit, was a major.... The rest either lost or exposed their
lives for their king."[509] He concludes the narrative by saying that
when the wars were over, those actors who were left alive gathered to
London, "and for a subsistence endeavoured to revive their old trade
privately." They organized themselves into a company in 1648 and
attempted "to act some plays with as much caution and privacy as could
be at the Cockpit"; but after three or four days they were stopped by
soldiers. Thereafter, on special occasions "they used to bribe the
officer who commanded the guard at Whitehall, and were thereupon
connived at to act for a few days at the Red Bull, but were sometimes,
notwithstanding, disturbed by soldiers."[510] To such clandestine
performances Kirkman refers in his Preface to _The Wits, or Sport upon
Sport_ (1672): "I have seen the Red Bull Playhouse, which was a large
one, so full that as many went back for want of room as had entered;
and as meanly as you may now think of these drolls, they were then
acted by the best comedians then and now in being." Not, however,
without occasional trouble. In Whitelocke's _Memorials_, p. 435, we
read: "20 Dec., 1649. Some stage-players in St. John's Street were
apprehended by troopers, their clothes taken away, and themselves
carried to prison"; again, in _The Perfect Account_, December
27-January 3, 1654-1655: "Dec. 30, 1654.--This day the players at the
Red Bull, being gotten into all their borrowed gallantry and ready to
act, were by some of the soldiery despoiled of all their bravery; but
the soldiery carried themselves very civilly towards the
audience."[511] In the _Weekly Intelligencer_, September 11-18, 1655,
we find recorded still another sad experience for the actors: "Friday,
September 11, 1655.--This day proved tragicall to the players at the
Red Bull; their acting being against the Act of Parliament, the
soldiers secured the persons of some of them who were upon the stage,
and in the tiring-house they seized also upon their clothes in which
they acted, a great part whereof was very rich."[512]

[Footnote 509: Hazlitt's Dodsley, XV, 409.]

[Footnote 510: _Ibid._, 409-10.]

[Footnote 511: Cited by C.H. Firth, in _Notes and Queries_, August 18,
1888, series VII, vol. VI, p. 122.]

[Footnote 512: _Ibid._]

On this occasion, however, the soldiers, instead of carrying
themselves "very civilly" towards the audience, undertook to exact
from each of the spectators the fine of five shillings. The ordinance
of Parliament, passed February 9, 1648, read: "And it is hereby
further ordered and ordained, that every person or persons which shall
be present and a spectator at such stage-play or interlude, hereby
prohibited, shall for every time he shall be present, forfeit and pay
the sum of five shillings to the use of the poor of the parish."[513]
But the spectators did not submit to this fine without a struggle.
Jeremiah Banks wrote to Williamson on September 16, 1655: "At the
playhouse this week many were put to rout by the soldiers and had
broken crowns; the corporal would have been entrapped had he not been
vigilant."[514] And in the _Weekly Intelligencer_, September 11-18, we
read: "It never fared worse with the spectators than at this present,
for those who had monies paid their five shillings apiece; those who
had none, to satisfy their forfeits, did leave their cloaks behind
them. The Tragedy of the spectators was the Comedy of the soldiers.
There was abundance of the female sex, who, not able to pay five
shillings, did leave some gage or other behind them, insomuch that
although the next day after the Fair was expected to be a new fair of
hoods, of aprons, and of scarfs; all which, their poverty being made
known, and after some check for their trespass, were civilly again
restored to the owners."[515]

[Footnote 513: Hazlitt, _The English Drama and Stage_, p. 69.]

[Footnote 514: _The Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1655_, p.
336.]

[Footnote 515: For a further account of this episode see _Mercurius
Fumigosus_, No. 69.]

At the period of the Restoration the Red Bull was among the first
playhouses to reopen. John Downes, in his _Roscius Anglicanus_,
writes: "The scattered remnant of several of these houses, upon King
Charles' Restoration, framed a company, who acted again at the
Bull."[516] Apparently the company was brought together by the famous
old Elizabethan actor, Anthony Turner. From the _Middlesex County
Records_ (III, 279) we learn that at first the players were
interrupted by the authorities:

     12 May, 1659.--Recognizances, taken before Ra: Hall, esq.
     J.P., of William Wintershall and Henry Eaton, both of
     Clerkenwell, gentlemen, in the sum of fifty pounds each;
     "Upon condition that Antony Turner shall personally appear
     at the next Quarter Sessions of the Peace to be holden at
     Hicks Hall for the said County of Middlesex; for the
     unlawful maintaining of stage-plays and interludes at the
     Red Bull in St. John's Street, which house he affirms that
     they hire of the parishioners of Clerkenwell at the rate of
     twenty shillings a day over and above what they have agreed
     to pay towards the relief of their poor and repairing their
     highways, and in the meantime to be of good behaviour and
     not to depart the Court without license.--Ra: Hall." Also
     similar Recognizances, taken on the same day, before the
     same J.P., of the same William Wintershall and Henry Eaton,
     gentlemen, in the same sum of fifty pounds each; for the
     appearance of Edward Shatterall at the next. Q.S.P. for
     Middlesex at Hicks Hall, "to answer for the unlawful
     maintaining of stage-plays and interludes at the Red Bull in
     St. John's Street &c." S.P.R., 17, May, 1659.

[Footnote 516: Cf. Wright, _Historia Histrionica_, p. 412; and for the
general history of the actors at the Red Bull during this period see
the Herbert records in Halliwell-Phillipps, _A Collection of Ancient
Documents_.]

Later, it seems, they secured a license from the authorities, and
thenceforth acted without interruption. Samuel Pepys made plans "to go
to the Red Bull Playhouse" with Mrs. Pierce and her husband on August
3, 1660, but was prevented by business. An account of his visit there
on March 23, 1661, is thus given in his _Diary_:

     All the morning at home putting papers in order; dined at
     home, and then out to the Red Bull (where I had not been
     since plays came up again), but coming too soon I went out
     again and walked up and down the Charterhouse Yard and
     Aldersgate Street. At last came back again and went in,
     where I was led by a seaman that knew me, but is here as a
     servant, up to the tiring-room, where strange the confusion
     and disorder that there is among them in fitting themselves,
     especially here, where the clothes are very poor and the
     actors but common fellows. At last into the pit, where I
     think there was not above ten more than myself, and not one
     hundred in the whole house. And the play, which is called
     _All's Lost by Lust_, poorly done; and with so much
     disorder, among others, that in the musique-room, the boy
     that was to sing a song not singing it right, his master
     fell about his ears and beat him so, that it put the whole
     house in an uproar.

The actors, however, did not remain long at the Red Bull. They built
for themselves a new theatre in Drury Lane, whither they moved on
April 8, 1663;[517] and after this the old playhouse was deserted. In
Davenant's _The Play-House to Be Let_ (1663), I, i, we read:

     Tell 'em the Red Bull stands empty for fencers:[518]
     There are no tenants in it but old spiders.

[Footnote 517: After November 8, 1660, they acted also in Gibbon's
Tennis Court in Clare Market, which they had fitted up as a theatre;
see Halliwell-Phillipps, _A Collection of Ancient Documents_, p. 34.]

[Footnote 518: See Pepys' _Diary_, April 25, 1664.]

CHAPTER XV

WHITEFRIARS

The district of Whitefriars, lying just outside the city wall to the
west, and extending from Fleet Street to the Thames, was once in the
possession of the order of White Friars, and the site of an important
monastery; but in Elizabeth's time the church had disappeared, most of
the ancient buildings had been dismantled, and in their place, as Stow
tells us, were "many fair houses builded, lodgings for noblemen and
others." Since at the dissolution of the monasteries the property had
come into the possession of the Crown, it was not under the
jurisdiction of the London Common Council--a fact which made
Whitefriars, like Blackfriars, a desirable refuge for players seeking
to escape the hostility of the city authorities.[519] One might
naturally expect the appearance of playing here at an early date, but
the evidence is slight.[520]

[Footnote 519: Whitefriars passed under city control in 1608 by grant
of King James I, but certain rights remained, notably that of
sanctuary. This has been celebrated in Shadwell's play, _The Squire of
Alsatia_, and in Scott's romance, _The Fortunes of Nigel_.]

[Footnote 520: Prynne, in _Histriomastix_ (1633), p. 491, quotes a
passage from Richard Reulidge's _Monster Lately Found Out and
Discovered_ (1628), in which there is a reference to a playhouse as
existing in Whitefriars "not long after" 1580. By "playhouse" Reulidge
possibly meant an inn used for acting; but the whole passage, written
by a Puritan after the lapse of nearly half a century, is open to
grave suspicion, especially in its details. Again Richard Flecknoe, in
_A Short Discourse of the English Stage_ (1664), states that the
Children of the Chapel Royal acted in Whitefriars. But that he
confused the word "Whitefriars" with "Blackfriars" is shown by the
rest of his statement.]

The first appearance of a regular playhouse in Whitefriars dates from
the early years of King James's reign. With our present knowledge we
cannot fix the date exactly, yet we can feel reasonably certain that
it was not long before 1607--probably about 1605.

The chief spirit in the organization of the new playhouse seems to
have been the poet Michael Drayton, who had secured a patent from King
James to "erect" a company of child actors, to be known as "The
Children of His Majesty's Revels."[521] Obviously his hope was to make
the Children of His Majesty's Revels at Whitefriars rival the
successful Children of Her Majesty's Revels at Blackfriars. In this
ambitious enterprise he associated with himself a wealthy London
merchant, Thomas Woodford, whom we know as having been interested in
various theatrical investments.[522] These two men leased from Lord
Buckhurst for a short period of time a building described as a
"mansion house" formerly a part of the Whitefriars monastery: "the
rooms of which are thirteen in number, three below, and ten above;
that is to say, the great hall, the kitchen by the yard, and a cellar,
with all the rooms from the Master of the Revells' office as the same
are now severed and divided."[523] The "great hall" here mentioned,
once the refectory of the monks, was made into the playhouse. Its
"great" size may be inferred from the fact that there were ten rooms
"above"; and its general excellence may be inferred from the fact that
it was leased at £50 per annum, whereas Blackfriars, in a more
desirable location and fully equipped as a theatre, was rented for
only £40.

[Footnote 521: Fleay, Murray, and others are wrong in assuming that
this troupe was merely a continuation of the Paul's Boys. So far as I
can discover, there is no official record of the patent issued to
Drayton; but that such a patent was issued is clear from the lawsuits
of 1609, printed by Greenstreet in _The New Shakspere Society's
Transactions_ (1887-90), p. 269.]

[Footnote 522: He was part proprietor of the Red Bull. In the case of
Witter _v._ Heminges and Condell he was examined as a witness (see
Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p. 74), but what
connection, if any, he had with the Globe does not appear.]

[Footnote 523: Greenstreet, _The New Shakspere Society's Transactions_
(1887-90), p. 275.]

From an early seventeenth-century survey of the Whitefriars property
(see the opposite page), we are able to place the building very
exactly. The part of the monastery used as a playhouse--the
Frater--was the southern cloister, marked in the plan, "My Lords
Cloyster." The "kitchen by the yard" mentioned in the document just
quoted is clearly represented in the survey by the "Scullere." The
size of the playhouse is hard to ascertain, but it was approximately
thirty-five feet in width and eighty-five feet in length.[524] In the
London of to-day it extended roughly from Bouverie Street to
Ashen-tree Court, and lay just north of George Yard.

[Footnote 524: The stipple walls, in the original survey colored gray,
were of stone; the thinner walls of the adjoining "tenements," in the
original colored red, were of brick.]

[Illustration: A PLAN OF WHITEFRIARS

A portion of an early seventeenth-century survey of the Whitefriars
property. The playhouse adjoined the "Scullere" on the south. (This
survey was discovered in the Print Room of the British Museum by Mr.
A.W. Clapham, and reproduced in _The Journal of the British
Archæological Association_, 1910.)]

Of the career of the Children under the joint management of Drayton
and Woodford we know almost nothing. But in March, 1608, a new
management assumed charge of the troupe, and from this point on the
history of the playhouse is reasonably clear.

The original lease of the building, it seems, expired on March 5,
1608. But before the expiration--in the latter part of 1607 or in the
early part of 1608--Drayton and Woodford secured a new lease on the
property for six years, eight months, and twenty days, or until
December 25 (one of the four regular feasts of the year), 1614. In
February, 1608, after having secured this renewal of the lease, Thomas
Woodford suddenly determined to retire from the enterprise; and he
sold his moiety to one David Lording Barry,[525] author of the play
_Ram Alley_. Barry and Drayton at once made plans to divide the
property into six shares, so as to distribute the expenses and the
risks as well as the hoped-for profits. Barry induced his friend,
George Androwes, to purchase one share, and hence the lawsuit from
which we derive most of our knowledge of the playhouse. From this suit
I quote below the more significant part relating to the new
organization:

     Humbly complaining, sheweth unto your honorable lordship,
     your daily orator, George Androwes, of London, silkweaver,
     that whereas one Lordinge Barry, about February which was in
     the year of our Lord 1607 [i.e., 1608], pretending himself
     to be lawfully possessed of one moiety of a messuage or
     mansion house, parcel of the late dissolved monastery called
     the Whitefriars, in Fleet Street, in the suburbs of London,
     by and under a lease made thereof, about March then next
     following, from the right honorable Robert, Lord Buckhurst,
     unto one Michael Drayton and Thomas Woodford, for the term
     of six years, eight months, and twenty days then following,
     for and under the yearly rent of fifty pounds reserved
     thereupon; the moiety of which said lease and premisses, by
     mean assignment from the said Thomas Woodford, was lawfully
     settled in the said Lordinge Barry, as he did pretend,
     together with the moiety of diverse play-books, apparel, and
     other furnitures and necessaries used and employed in and
     about the said messuage and the Children of the Revels,[526]
     there being, in making and setting forth plays, shows, and
     interludes, and such like. And the said Lordinge Barry ...
     being desirous to join others with him in the interest of
     the same, who might be contributory to such future charges
     as should arise in setting forth of plays and shows there,
     did thereupon ... solicit and persuade your orator to
     take from the said Barry an assignment of a sixth part of
     the messuage, premisses, and profits aforesaid.

[Footnote 525: By a stupid error often called Lodowick Barry. For an
explanation of the error see an article by the present writer in
_Modern Philology_, April, 1912, IX, 567. Mr. W.J. Lawrence has
recently shown (_Studies in Philology_, University of North Carolina,
April, 1917) that David Barry was the eldest son of the ninth Viscount
Buttevant, and was called "Lording" by courtesy. At the time he became
interested in the Whitefriars Playhouse he was twenty-two years old.
He died in 1610.]

[Footnote 526: At this time the Children of Blackfriars had lost their
patent, so that the Children at Whitefriars were the only Revels
troupe.]

[Illustration: MICHAEL DRAYTON

(From a painting in the National Portrait Gallery, London: photograph
copyrighted by Emery Walker, Ltd.)]

This passage gives us an interesting glimpse of Drayton and Barry in
their efforts to organize a syndicate for exploiting the Children of
His Majesty's Revels. They induced several other persons to buy
half-shares; and then they engaged, as manager of the Children, Martin
Slaiter,[527] a well-known and thoroughly experienced actor. For his
services as manager, Slaiter was to receive one whole share in the
organization, and lodgings for himself and his family of ten in the
building. The syndicate thus formed was made up of four whole-sharers,
Michael Drayton, Lordinge Barry, George Androwes, and Martin Slaiter,
and four half-sharers, William Trevell, William Cooke, Edward
Sibthorpe, and John Mason.[528]

[Footnote 527: Also spelled Slater, Slaughter, Slather, Slawghter.
Henslowe often refers to him as "Martin."]

[Footnote 528: Mr. Wallace (_The Century Magazine_, 1910, LXXX, 511)
incorrectly says that Whitefriars was held by "six equal sharers."]

The "great hall" had, of course, already been fitted up for the acting
of plays, and the new lessees did not at first contemplate any
expenditure on the building. Later, however,--if we can believe
Androwes,--they spent a not inconsiderable sum for improvements. The
Children already had certain plays, and to these were added some new
ones. Among the plays in their repertoire were Day's _Humour Out of
Breath_, Middleton's _Family of Love_, Armin's _The Two Maids of
Moreclacke_, Sharpham's _Cupid's Whirligig_, Markham and Machin's _The
Dumb Knight_, Barry's _Ram Alley_, and Mason's _The Turk_. The last
two writers were sharers, and it seems likely that Drayton, also a
sharer and experienced as a dramatist, contributed some plays towards
the stock of the company.

The new organization, with bright prospects for success, was launched
in March, 1608. Almost at once, however, it began to suffer from ill
luck. In April the Children at Blackfriars, by their performance of
_Byron_, caused King James to close all playhouses in London. How long
he kept them closed we do not know, but we find the lessees of
Whitefriars joining with the three other London companies in seeking
to have the inhibition raised. As the French Ambassador informed his
Government: "Pour lever cette défense, quatres autres compagnies, qui
y sont encore, offrent déjà cent mille francs, lesquels pourront bien
leur en ordonner la permission."[529]

[Footnote 529: Letter of M. De La Boderie, the French Ambassador to
England; quoted by E.K. Chambers, _Modern Language Review_, IV, 159.]

Even if this inhibition was shortly raised, the Whitefriars
organization was not much better off, for in July the plague set in
with unusual violence, and acting was seriously if not wholly
interrupted for the next twelve months and more. As a result, the
profits from the theatre did not come up to the "fair and false
flattering speeches" which at the outset Barry had made to prospective
investors, and this led to bad feeling among the sharers.

The company at Blackfriars, of course, was suffering in a similar way.
On August 8, 1608, their playhouse was surrendered to the owner,
Richard Burbage, and the Children being thus left without a home were
dispersed. Early in 1609, probably in February, Robert Keysar (the
manager of the Blackfriars troupe), Philip Rosseter, and others
secured the lease of the Whitefriars Playhouse from Drayton and the
rest of the discontented sharers, and reassembled there the Children
of Blackfriars. What became of the Whitefriars troupe we do not know;
but it is highly likely that the new organization took over the better
actors from Drayton's company. At any rate, we do not hear again of
the Children of His Majesty's Revels.

When Keysar and this new troupe of child-actors moved into
Whitefriars, Slaiter and his family of ten were expelled from the
building. This led to a lawsuit, and explains much in the legal
documents printed by Greenstreet. Slaiter complained with no little
feeling that he had been "riotously, willfully, violently, and
unlawfully, contrary to the said articles and pretended agreement [by
which he had been not only engaged as a manager, but also guaranteed a
home for the period of "all the term of years in the lease"], put and
kept out of his said rooms of habitation for him, this defendant, and
his family, and all other his means of livelihood, thereby leaving
this defendant and his whole family, being ten in number, to the world
to seek for bread and other means to live by."[530]

[Footnote 530: Greenstreet, _The New Shakspere Society's Transactions_
(1887-90), p. 283.]

The new Whitefriars troupe acted five plays at Court during the winter
of 1609-10. Payments therefor were made to Robert Keysar, and the
company was referred to merely as "The Children of the Whitefriars."
But on January 4, 1610, the company secured a royal patent authorizing
the use of the title "The Children of the Queen's Revels."[531] The
patent was granted to Robert Daborne, Philip Rosseter, John Tarbock,
Richard Jones, and Robert Browne; but Keysar, though not named in the
grant, was still one of the important sharers.[532]

[Footnote 531: Printed in The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 271.]

[Footnote 532: See Keysar _v._ Burbage _et al._, printed by Mr.
Wallace, in his _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, pp. 80 ff.]

The troupe well deserved the patronage of the Queen. Keysar described
the Blackfriars Children whom he had reorganized as "a company of the
most expert and skillful actors within the realm of England, to the
number of eighteen or twenty persons, all or most of them, trained up
in that service in the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth for ten years
together."[533] And to these, as I have pointed out, it seems likely
that the best members of the bankrupt Children of His Majesty's Revels
had been added. The chief actor of the new organization was
Nathaniel Field, whose histrionic ability placed him beside Edward
Alleyn and Richard Burbage. One of the first plays he was called upon
to act in his new theatre was Jonson's brilliant comedy, _Epicoene_,
in which he took the leading rôle.

[Footnote 533: _Ibid._, p. 90.]

[Illustration: THE SITES OF THE WHITEFRIARS AND THE SALISBURY COURT
PLAYHOUSES

The Whitefriars Playhouse was just north of "K. 46"; the Salisbury
Court Playhouse was just south of the court of that name. (From Ogilby
and Morgan's _Map of London_, 1677.)]

The idea then occurred to Rosseter to secure a monopoly on
child-acting and on private playhouses. The Children of His Majesty's
Revels had ceased to exist. The Blackfriars Playhouse had been closed
by royal command, and its lease had been surrendered to its owner,
Richard Burbage. The only rival to the Children at Whitefriars was the
troupe of Paul's Boys acting in their singing-school behind the
Cathedral. How Rosseter attempted to buy them off is thus recorded by
Richard Burbage and John Heminges:

     There being, as these defendants verily think, but only
     three private playhouses in the city of London, the one of
     which being in the Blackfriars and in the hands of these
     defendants or of their assigns, one other being in the
     Whitefriars in the hands or occupation of the said
     complainant himself [Keysar], his partners [Rosseter, _et
     al._], or assigns, and the third near St. Paul's Church,
     then being in the hands of one Mr. Pierce, but then unused
     for a playhouse. One Mr. Rosseter, a partner of the said
     complainant [Keysar] dealt for and compounded with the said
     Mr. Pierce [Master of the Paul's Boys] to the only benefit
     of him, the said Rosseter, the now complainant [Keysar], the
     rest of their partners and company, and without the privity,
     knowledge, or consent of these defendants [the King's
     Company], or any of them, and that thereby they, the said
     complainant [Keysar] and the said Rosseter and their
     partners and company might advance their gains and profit to
     be had and made in their said house in 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.[534]

[Footnote 534: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p.
95.]

By this means Rosseter disposed of the competition of the Paul's Boys.
But, although he secured a monopoly on child-acting, he failed to
secure a monopoly on private playhouses, for shortly after he had
sealed this bargain with Pierce, the powerful King's Men opened up at
Blackfriars. Rosseter promptly requested them to pay half the "dead
rent" to Pierce, which they good-naturedly agreed to do.

In 1613 Whitefriars was rented by certain London apprentices for the
performance "at night" of Robert Taylor's _The Hog Hath Lost His
Pearl_. The episode is narrated by Sir Henry Wotton in a letter to Sir
Edmund Bacon:

     On Sunday last, at night, and no longer, some sixteen
     apprentices (of what sort you shall guess by the rest of the
     story) having secretly learnt a new play without book,[535]
     entitled _The Hog Hath Lost His Pearl_, took up the
     Whitefriars for their theatre, and having invited thither
     (as it should seem) rather their mistresses than their
     masters, who were all to enter _per buletini_ for a note of
     distinction from ordinary comedians. Towards the end of the
     play the sheriffs (who by chance had heard of it) came in
     (as they say) and carried some six or seven of them to
     perform the last act at Bridewell. The rest are fled. Now it
     is strange to hear how sharp-witted the city is, for they
     will needs have Sir John Swinerton, the Lord Mayor, be meant
     by the Hog, and the late Lord Treasurer by the Pearl.[536]

[Footnote 535: Miss Gildersleeve, in her valuable _Government
Regulation of the Elizabethan Drama_, p. 112, says: "Just what is the
meaning of 'a new Play without Book' no one seems to have
conjectured." And she develops the theory that "it refers to the
absence of a licensed play-book," etc. The phrase "to learn without
book" meant simply "to memorize."]

[Footnote 536: _Reliquiæ Wottonianæ_ (ed. 1672), p. 402. The letter is
dated merely 1612-13. In connection with the play one should study
_The Hector of Germany_, 1615.]

Apparently the Children of the Queen's Revels continued successfully
at Whitefriars until March, 1613. On that date Rosseter agreed with
Henslowe to join the Revels with the Lady Elizabeth's Men then acting
at the Swan. The new organization, following the example of the King's
Men, used Whitefriars as a winter, and the Swan as a summer, house.
Thus for a time at least Whitefriars came under the management of
Henslowe.

Rosseter's lease of the building was to expire in the following year.
He seems to have made plans--possibly with the assistance of
Henslowe--to erect in Whitefriars a more suitable playhouse for the
newly organized company; at least that is a plausible interpretation
of the following curious entry in Sir George Buc's Office Book: "July
13, 1613, for a license to erect a new playhouse in Whitefriars, &c.
£20."[537] But the new playhouse thus projected never was built,
doubtless because of strong local opposition. Instead, Henslowe
erected for the company a public playhouse on the Bankside, known as
"The Hope."

[Footnote 537: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 52.]

In March, 1614, at the expiration of one year, Rosseter withdrew from
his partnership with Henslowe. On December 25, 1614, his lease of the
Whitefriars expired, and he was apparently unable to renew it.
Thereupon he attempted to fit up a private playhouse in the district
of Blackfriars, and on June 3, 1615, he actually secured a royal
license to do so. But in this effort, too, he was foiled.[538]

[Footnote 538: See the chapter on "Rosseter's Blackfriars." The
documents concerned in this venture are printed in The Malone
Society's _Collections_, I, 277.]

After this we hear little or nothing of the Whitefriars Playhouse. Yet
the building may occasionally have been used for dramatic purposes.
Cunningham says: "The case of Trevill _v._ Woodford, in the Court of
Requests, informs us that plays were performed at the Whitefriars
Theatre as late as 1621; Sir Anthony Ashley, the then landlord of the
house, entering the theatre in that year, and turning the players out
of doors, on pretense that half a year's rent was yet unpaid to
him."[539] I have not been able to examine this document. Neither
Fleay nor Murray has found any trace of a company at Whitefriars after
Rosseter's departure; hence for all practical purposes we may regard
the Whitefriars Playhouse as having come to the end of its career in
1614.

[Footnote 539: _The Shakespeare Society's Papers_, IV, 90. The
document printed by Collier in _New Facts Regarding the Life of
Shakespeare_ (1835), p. 44, as from a manuscript in his possession,
is, I think, an obvious forgery.]

CHAPTER XVI

THE HOPE

On August 29, 1611, Henslowe became manager of the Lady Elizabeth's
Men. Having agreed among other things to furnish them with a
playhouse,[540] and no longer being in possession of the Rose, he
rented the old Swan and maintained them there throughout the year
1612.

[Footnote 540: The agreement has been lost, but for a probably similar
agreement, made with the actor Nathaniel Field, see Greg, _Henslowe
Papers_, p. 23.]

In March of the following year, 1613, he entered into a partnership
with Philip Rosseter (the manager of the private playhouse of
Whitefriars), and "joined" the Lady Elizabeth's Men with Rosseter's
excellent troupe of the Queen's Revels. Apparently the intention of
Henslowe and Rosseter was to form a company strong enough to compete
on equal terms with the King's Men. In imitation of the King's Men,
who used the Globe as a summer and the Blackfriars as a winter home,
the newly amalgamated company was to use the Swan and the
Whitefriars.[541] And the chief actor of the troupe, corresponding to
Richard Burbage of the King's Men, was to be Nathaniel Field, then at
the height of his powers:

     _Cokes._ Which is your Burbage now?

     _Leatherhead._ What mean you by that, sir?

     _Cokes._ Your best actor, your Field.

     _Littlewit._ Good, i' faith! you are even with me, sir.[542]

[Footnote 541: Daborne writes to Henslowe on June 5, 1613: "The
company told me you were expected there yesterday to conclude about
their coming over ... my own play which shall be ready before they
come over." This, I suspect, refers to the moving of the company to
the Swan for the summer. (See Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 72.) That
Henslowe was manager of a "private" house in 1613 is revealed by
another letter from Daborne, dated December 9, 1613. (See Greg,
_ibid._, p. 79.)]

[Footnote 542: _Bartholomew Fair_, V, iii. The part of Littlewit was
presumably taken by Field himself.]

Among their playwrights were Ben Jonson, Philip Massinger, John
Fletcher, and Robert Daborne, not to mention Field, who in addition to
acting wrote excellent plays.

If it was the purpose of Henslowe and Rosseter to compete with the
Globe Company in a winter as well as in a summer house, that purpose
was endangered by the fact that Rosseter's lease of his private
theatre expired within a year and a half, and could not be renewed.
Rosseter and Henslowe, as pointed out in the preceding chapter, seem
to have attempted to erect in Whitefriars a winter home for their
troupe; so, at least, I have interpreted the curious entry in Sir
George Buc's Office Book: "July 13, 1613, for a license to erect a new
playhouse in the Whitefriars, &c. £20."[543] The attempt, however, was
foiled, probably by the strong opposition of the inhabitants of the
district.

[Footnote 543: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 52.]

Shortly after this, Henslowe made plans to provide the company with a
new and better public playhouse on the Bankside, more conveniently
situated than the Swan. The old Bear Garden was beginning to show
signs of decay, and, doubtless, would soon have to be rebuilt. This
suggested to Henslowe the idea of tearing down that ancient structure
and erecting in its place a larger and handsomer building to serve
both for the performance of plays and for the baiting of animals. To
this plan Jacob Meade, Henslowe's partner in the ownership of the Bear
Garden, agreed.

[Illustration: THE HOPE PLAYHOUSE, OR SECOND BEAR GARDEN

From Hollar's _View of London_ (1647).]

Accordingly, on August 29, 1613, Henslowe and Meade signed a contract
with a carpenter named Katherens to pull down the Bear Garden and
erect in its place a new structure. The original contract, preserved
among the Henslowe Papers, is one of the most valuable documents we
have relating to the early theatres. It is too long and verbose for
insertion here, but I give below a summary of its contents.[544]
Katherens agreed:

     1. To "pull down" the Bear Garden and "the stable wherein
     the bulls and horses" had been kept; and "near or upon the
     said place where the said game-place did heretofore stand,"
     to "newly erect, build, and set up" a "playhouse, fit and
     convenient in all things both for players to play in, and
     for the game of bears and bulls to be baited in."

     2. "To build the same of such large compass, form, wideness,
     and height as the playhouse called the Swan."

     3. To provide for the building "a good sure, and sufficient
     foundation of bricks ... thirteen inches at the least above
     the ground."

     4. To make three galleries: "the inner principal posts of
     the first story to be twelve feet in height, and ten inches
     square; in the middle story ... eight inches square; in the
     upper story ... seven inches square."[545]

     5. To "make two boxes in the lowermost story, fit and decent
     for gentlemen to sit in," and in the rest of the galleries
     "partitions between the rooms as they are in the said
     playhouse called the Swan."

     6. To construct "a stage, to be carried and taken away, and
     to stand upon tressels, good, substantial, and sufficient
     for the carrying and bearing of such a stage."

     7. To "build the heavens all over the said stage, to be
     borne or carried without any posts or supporters to be fixed
     or set upon the said stage."

     8. To equip the stage with "a fit and convenient
     tyre-house."

     9. To "build two staircases without and adjoining to the
     said playhouse ... of such largeness and height as the
     staircases of the said playhouse called the Swan."

     10. "To new build, erect, and set up the said bull-house and
     stable ... of that largeness and fitness as shall be
     sufficient to keep and hold six bulls and three horses."

     11. "To new tyle with English tyles all the upper roof of
     the said playhouse ... and stable."

     12. To have the playhouse finished "upon or before the last
     day of November," 1613.

[Footnote 544: The contract is printed in full in Greg, _Henslowe
Papers_, p. 19.]

[Footnote 545: The height is given for the first story only. We may
assume that the middle and uppermost stories were of diminishing
heights, as in the case of the Fortune Playhouse, in which the
galleries were respectively twelve, eleven, and nine feet in height.]

For all this Katherens was to receive the sum of £360; but since
Henslowe and Meade supplied a large share of the lumber and other
materials, the total cost of the building may be estimated as not less
than £600.

When completed, the new playhouse was appropriately christened "The
Hope."

It has been generally assumed that a picture of the Hope is given in
Visscher's _View of London_, published in 1616; but this, I think, is
exceedingly doubtful. In drawing the Bankside, Visscher rather
slavishly copied the Agas map of 1560, inserting a few new
buildings,--notably the playhouses,--and it is virtually certain that
he represented the "Bear Garden" (so he distinctly calls it) and the
Globe as they were before their reconstruction.[546] The first
representation of the Hope is to be found in Hollar's splendid _View
of London_ published in 1647 (see page 326). At this time the
building, which had for many years been devoted wholly to the royal
sports of bull- and bear-baiting, was still standing. It is hard to
believe that an artist who so carefully represented the famous
edifices of the city should have greatly erred in drawing the "Bear
Baiting House,"--a structure more curious than they, and quite as
famous.

[Footnote 546: The Merian _View of London_, published in 1638 at
Frankfort-am-Main, is merely a copy of the Visscher view with the
addition of certain details from another and earlier view not yet
identified. It has no independent value. The _View of London_ printed
in Howell's _Londinopolis_ (1657), is merely a slavish copy of the
Merian view. Visscher's representation of the Bear Garden does not
differ in any essential way from the representation in Hondius's
_View_ of 1610. For a fuller discussion see pages 126, 146, 248.]

Hollar represents the Hope as circular. According to the contract
Katherens was "to build the same of such large compass, form,
wideness, and height as the playhouse called the Swan." Whether the
word "form" was intended to apply to the exterior of the building we
do not know. The Swan was decahedral; Visscher represents the "Bear
Garden" as octagonal (which is correct for the Bear Garden that
preceded the Hope). But since the exterior was of lime and plaster,
and a decahedral form had no advantage, Katherens may well have
constructed a circular building as Hollar indicates. Perhaps it is
significant in this connection that John Taylor, the Water-Poet, in
his _Bull, Bear, and Horse_, refers to the Hope as a "sweet,
_rotuntious_ college." Significant also, perhaps, is the clause in
the contract by which Katherens was required to "build the heavens all
over the stage," for this exactly describes the heavens as drawn by
Hollar. I see no reason to doubt that in the _View_ of 1647 we have a
reasonably faithful representation of the Hope.

[Illustration: THE HOPE PLAYHOUSE, OR SECOND BEAR GARDEN

The upper view is from Hollar's Post-conflagration map in the Crace
Collection of the British Museum; the lower view is from Faithorne's
Map of London (1658).]

The Hope was probably opened shortly after November 30, 1613, the date
at which Katherens had bound himself to have the building "fully
finished," and it was occupied, of course, by the Henslowe and
Rosseter troupe of actors. The arrangement of the movable stage
enabled Henslowe and Meade to use the building also for
animal-baiting. According to the contract with the actors, the latter
were to "lie still one day in fourteen" for the baiting.[547] This may
not have been a serious interruption for the players; but the presence
of the stable, the bear dens, and the kennels for the dogs must have
rendered the playhouse far from pleasant to the audiences. Ben Jonson,
in the Induction to his _Bartholomew Fair_, acted at the Hope in
October, 1614, remarks: "And though the Fair be not kept in the same
region that some here perhaps would have it, yet think that therein
the author hath observed a special decorum, the place being as dirty
as Smithfield, and as stinking every whit."[548]

[Footnote 547: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 88; cf. p. 125, where
animal-baiting is said to be used "one day of every four days"--a
possible error for "fourteen days." In the manuscript notes to the
Phillipps copy of Stow's _Survey_ (1631), we are told that baiting was
used at the Hope on Tuesdays and Thursdays; but the anonymous
commentator is very inaccurate.]

[Footnote 548: The Rose Playhouse was likewise affected. Dekker, in
_Satiromastix_, III, iv, says: "Th'ast a breath as sweet as the Rose
that grows by the Bear Garden."]

In March, 1614,--that is, at the completion of one full year under the
joint management of Henslowe and Rosseter,--the amalgamated company
was "broken," and Rosseter withdrew, selling his interest in the
company's apparel to Henslowe and Meade for £63. The latter at once
reorganized the actors under the patent of the Lady Elizabeth's Men,
and continued them at the Hope.[549] The general excellence of the
troupe thus formed is referred to by John Taylor, the Water-Poet, in
the lines:

     And such a company (I'll boldly say)
     That better (nor the like) e'er play'd a play.[550]

[Footnote 549: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 87. The articles of
agreement between Henslowe and Meade and the company, are printed by
Greg on page 23.]

[Footnote 550: _Works_, Folio of 1630; The Spenser Society's reprint,
p. 307.]

But this encomium may have been in large measure due to gratitude, for
the company had just saved the Water-Poet from a very embarrassing
situation. The amusing episode which gave occasion to this deserves to
be chronicled in some detail.

With "a thousand bills posted over the city" Taylor had advertised to
the public that at the Hope Playhouse on October 7, 1614, he would
engage in a contest of wit with one William Fennor, who proudly styled
himself "The King's Majesty's Riming Poet."[551] On the appointed day
the house was "fill'd with a great audience" that had paid extra money
to hear the contest between two such well-known extemporal wits. But
Fennor did not appear. The result may best be told by Taylor himself:

     I then stept out, their angers to appease;
     But they all raging, like tempestuous seas,
     Cry'd out, their expectations were defeated,
     And how they all were cony-catch'd and cheated.
     Some laught, some swore, some star'd and stamp'd and curst,
     And in confusèd humors all out burst.
     I (as I could) did stand the desp'rate shock,
     And bid the brunt of many dang'rous knock.
     For now the stinkards, in their ireful wraths,
     Bepelted me with lome, with stones, with laths.
     One madly sits like bottle-ale and hisses;
     Another throws a stone, and 'cause he misses,
     He yawnes and bawles, ...
     Some run to th' door to get again their coin ...
     One valiantly stepped upon the stage,
     And would tear down the hangings in his rage ...
     What I endur'd upon that earthly hell
     My tongue or pen cannot describe it well.[552]

[Footnote 551: Fennor is not to be confused (as is commonly done) with
Vennar (see p. 177). Such wit-contests were popular; Fennor had
recently challenged Kendall, on the Fortune Stage.]

[Footnote 552: John Taylor's _Works_, Folio of 1630, p. 142; The
Spenser Society's reprint, p. 304.]

At this point the actors came to his rescue and presented a play that
mollified the audience. Taylor had to content himself with a printed
justification. The bitter invective of Taylor against Fennor,
Fennor's reply, and Taylor's several answers are to be found in the
folio edition of the Water-Poet's works. The episode doubtless
furnished much amusement to the city.

Some three weeks after this event, on October 31, 1614, the Lady
Elizabeth's Men produced with great success Jonson's _Bartholomew
Fair_; and on November 1 they were called upon to give the play at
Court. But the career of the company was in the main unhappy. Henslowe
managed their affairs on the theory that "should these fellows come
out of my debt, I should have no rule with them."[553] Accordingly in
three years he "broke" and again reorganized them no fewer than five
times.

[Footnote 553: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 89.]

At last, in February, 1615, he not only "broke" the company, but
severed his connection with them for ever. He turned the hired men
over to other troupes, and sold the stock of apparel "to strangers"
for £400. The indignant actors, in June, 1615, drew up "Articles of
Grievance" in which they charged Henslowe with having extorted from
the company by unjust means the sum of £567; and also "Articles of
Oppression" in which they accused him of various dishonorable
practices in his dealings with them.[554]

[Footnote 554: _Ibid._, pp. 86, 89.]

Shortly after severing his connection with the Lady Elizabeth's Men,
Henslowe, in March, 1615, seems to have taken over Prince Charles's
Men, who, it appears, had been acting at the Swan. To this new
company--the "strangers" referred to, I think--he had already
transferred some of the hirelings, and had sold the Hope stock of
apparel for £400.

Henslowe died early in January of the following year, 1616, and his
interest in the theatre passed to Edward Alleyn. On March 20, 1616,
Alleyn and Meade engaged Prince Charles's Men to continue at the Hope
"according to the former articles of agreement had and made with the
said Philip [Henslowe] and Jacob [Meade]."[555] The actors
acknowledged themselves indebted to Henslowe "for a stock of apparel
used for playing apparel, to the value of £400, heretofore delivered
unto them by the said Philip,"[556]--the stock formerly used by the
Lady Elizabeth's Men; and Alleyn and Meade agreed to accept £200 in
full discharge of that debt.[557]

[Footnote 555: Collier, _Memoirs of Edward Alleyn_, p. 127; Greg,
_Henslowe Papers_, p. 91.]

[Footnote 556: Collier, _Memoirs of Edward Alleyn_, p. 127.]

[Footnote 557: My interpretation of the relation of Henslowe to Prince
Charles's Men differs from the interpretation given by Fleay and
adopted by Greg and others. For the evidence bearing on the case see
Fleay, _Stage_, pp. 188, 262; Greg, _Henslowe's Diary_, II, 138; Greg,
_Henslowe Papers_, p. 90, note; Chambers, _Modern Language Review_,
IV, 165; Cunningham, _Revels_, p. xliv; Wallace, _Englische Studien_,
XLIII, 390; Murray, _English Dramatic Companies_.]

In the winter of 1616-17, Prince Charles's Men quarreled with Meade,
who had appropriated an extra day for his bear-baiting. Rosseter had
just completed a new private theatre in Porter's Hall, Blackfriars,
and that stood invitingly open. So about February they abandoned the
Hope, and wrote a letter of explanation to Edward Alleyn: "I hope you
mistake not our removal from the Bankside. We stood the intemperate
weather, 'till more intemperate Mr. Meade thrust us over, taking the
day from us which by course was ours."[558]

[Footnote 558: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 93. Cf. also the chapter on
"Rosseter's Blackfriars."]

After the company quarreled with Meade and deserted the Hope, there is
no evidence that the building was again used for plays. It became
associated almost entirely with animal-baiting, fencing, feats of
activity, and such-like performances; and gradually the very name
"Hope," which was identified with acting, gave way to the earlier
designation "Bear Garden." In 1632 the author of _Holland's Leaguer_
remarks that "wild beasts and gladiators did most possess it"; and
such must have been the chief use of the building down to 1642, when
animal-baiting was prohibited by Parliament.[559]

[Footnote 559: Collier, _The History of English Dramatic Poetry_
(1879), III, 102; Ordish, _Early London Theatres_, p. 237.]

On January 14, 1647, at the disposition of the Church lands, the Hope
was sold for £1783 15_s._[560]

[Footnote 560: Arthur Tiler, _St. Saviour's_, p. 51; Reed's Dodsley,
IX, 175.]

In certain manuscript notes entered in the Phillipps copy of Stow's
_Annals_ (1631), we read:

     The Hope, on the Bankside, in Southwarke, commonly called
     the Bear Garden, a playhouse for stage-plays on Mondays,
     Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and for the baiting of
     Bears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the stage being made to
     take up and down when they please. It was built in the year
     1610, and now pulled down to make tenements, by Thomas
     Walker, a petticoat-maker in Cannon Street, on Tuesday, the
     25 day of March, 1656. Seven of Mr. Godfrey's bears, by the
     command of Thomas Pride, then high sheriff of Surrey, were
     then shot to death on Saturday the 9 day of February, 1655
     [i.e. 1656], by a company of soldiers.[561]

[Footnote 561: Printed in _The Academy_, October 28, 1882, p. 314. As
to "Mr. Godfrey" see Collier, _The History of English Dramatic Poetry_
(1879), III, 102.]

The mistakes in the earlier part of this note are obvious, yet the
latter part is so circumstantial that we cannot well doubt its general
accuracy. The building, however, was not pulled down "to the ground,"
though its interior may have been converted into tenements.

At the Restoration, when the royal sport of bear-baiting was revived,
the Hope was again fitted up as an amphitheatre and opened to the
public. The Earl of Manchester, on September 29, 1664, wrote to the
city authorities, requesting that the butchers be required, as of old,
to provide food for the dogs and bears:

     He had been informed by the Master of His Majesty's Game of
     Bears and Bulls, and others, that the Butchers' Company had
     formerly caused all their offal in Eastcheap and Newgate
     Market to be conveyed by the beadle of that Company unto
     two barrow houses, conveniently placed on the river side,
     for the provision and feeding of the King's Game of Bears,
     which custom had been interrupted in the late troubles when
     the bears were killed. His Majesty's game being now removed
     to the usual place on the Bankside, by Order of the Council,
     he recommended the Court of Aldermen to direct the Master
     and Wardens of the Butchers' Company to have their offal
     conveyed as formerly for the feeding of the bears, &c.[562]

[Footnote 562: _The Remembrancia_, p. 478. Quoted by Ordish, _Early
London Theatres_, p. 241.]

For some years the Bear Garden flourished as it had in the days of
Elizabeth and James. It was frequently visited by Samuel Pepys, who
has left vivid accounts of several performances there. In his _Diary_,
August 14, 1666, he writes:

     After dinner with my wife and Mercer to the Bear-garden;
     where I have not been, I think, of many years, and saw some
     good sport of the bull's tossing of the dogs: one into the
     very boxes. But it is a very rude and nasty pleasure. We had
     a great many hectors in the same box with us (and one, very
     fine, went into the pit, and played his dog for a wager,
     which was a strange sport for a gentleman), where they drank
     wine, and drank Mercer's health first; which I pledged with
     my hat off.

John Evelyn, likewise, in his _Diary_, June 16, 1670, records a visit
to the Bear Garden:

     I went with some friends to the Bear Garden, where was
     cock-fighting, dog-fighting, bear- and bull-baiting, it
     being a famous day for all these butcherly sports, or rather
     barbarous cruelties. The bulls did exceeding well; but the
     Irish wolf-dog exceeded, which was a tall greyhound, a
     stately creature indeed, who beat a cruel mastiff. One of
     the bulls tossed a dog full into a lady's lap as she sat in
     one of the boxes at a considerable height from the arena.
     Two poor dogs were killed; and so all ended with the ape on
     horseback, and I most heartily weary of the rude and dirty
     pastime, which I had not seen, I think, in twenty years
     before.

On January 7, 1676, the Spanish Ambassador was entertained at the Bear
Garden, as we learn from a warrant, dated March 28, 1676, for the
payment of £10 "to James Davies, Esq., Master of His Majesty's Bears,
Bulls, and Dogs, for making ready the rooms at the Bear Garden, and
baiting of the bears before the Spanish Ambassador, the 7 January
last, 1675 {6}."[563]

[Footnote 563: British Museum Additional MSS. 5750; quoted by
Cunningham, _Handbook of London_ (1849), I, 67.]

Rendle[564] quotes from _The Loyal Protestant_ an advertisement of an
entertainment to be given so late as 1682 "at the Hope on the
Bankside, being His Majesty's Bear Garden." And Malcolm writes the
following account of the baiting of a horse there in April of the same
year:

     Notice was given in the papers that on the twelfth of April
     a horse, of uncommon strength, and between 18 and 19 hands
     high, would be _baited to death at his Majesty's
     Bear-Garden_ at the Hope on the Bankside, for the amusement
     of the Morocco ambassador, many of the nobility who knew the
     horse, and any others who would pay the price of admission.
     It seems this animal originally belonged to the Earl of
     Rochester, and being of a ferocious disposition, had killed
     several of his brethren; for which misdeed he was sold to
     the Earl of Dorchester; in whose service, committing several
     similar offenses, he was transferred to the worse than
     savages who kept the Bear-Garden. On the day appointed
     several dogs were set upon the vindictive steed, which he
     destroyed or drove from the arena; at this instant his
     owners determined to preserve him for a future day's sport,
     and directed a person to lead him away; but before the horse
     had reached London Bridge the spectators demanded the
     fulfilment of the promise of baiting him to death, and began
     to destroy the building: to conclude, the poor beast was
     brought back, and other dogs set upon him, without effect,
     when he was stabbed to death with a sword.[565]

[Footnote 564: _The Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer_, VIII,
59.]

[Footnote 565: James Peller Malcolm, _Anecdotes of the Manners and
Customs of London from the Roman Invasion to the Year 1700_ (London,
1811), p. 425.]