CHAPTER XIV

Here, gentlemen, our anchor's fixt; and weDisdainingFortune'smutability,Expect your kind acceptance.

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.

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.

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 ofThe 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.

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]

When the ordinance prohibiting plays expired in January, 1648, the actors promptly reopened the Fortune, and we learn fromThe Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencerthat 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 5s.8d., the authorities of the College took formal possession of the playhouse.

From certain manuscript notes[477]entered in the Phillipps copy of Stow'sAnnals(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 Phœnix, 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.

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 nameof the Fortune Playhouse might be allotted and set apart for that purpose." The request was not granted.[479]

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]

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 theMercurius Politicusof 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]

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]

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'sMap 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.

THE SITE OF THE RED BULL PLAYHOUSE

The site is indicated by Red Bull Yard. (From Ogilby and Morgan'sMap of London, 1677.)

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In or before 1605[486]Holland erected on this plotof 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 whomThomas 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.

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'sThe Wits(1672), so often reproduced byscholars 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'sHistoria 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."

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 hisEpigrams, 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 theQueen's Men were playing regularly at the Red Bull in 1609 is clear from Dekker'sRaven's Almanack,[493]and they may have been playing there at intervals after 1605.

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]

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]

The chief playwright for the troupe was the learned and industrious Thomas Heywood, who, like Shakespeare, was also an actor and full sharer in hiscompany. 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 hisAccount 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 forThe Younger Brotherbut £3 6s.4d."[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]

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."

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 xs.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 uponyou 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]

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]

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.

Two years later, in 1625, Prince Charles became King, and took under his patronage his father'stroupe, 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., inLondon'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 hisHistriomastix(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.

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. InThe 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 seeA play for two-pence, and a jig to boot.[504]

In 1638, a writer of verses prefixed to Randolph'sPoemsspeaks of the "base plots" acted with great applause at the Red Bull.[505]James Wright informs us, in hisHistoria Histrionica, that the Red Bull and the Fortune were "mostly frequented by citizens and the meaner sort of people."[506]And Edmund Gayton, in hisPleasant 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.

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.

This proved true, for the company remained at theRed 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 calledPerfect Occurrences, was given a performance of Beaumont and Fletcher'sWit 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 hisHistoria 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 Shatterelquartermaster. 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 toThe 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'sMemorials, 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, inThe 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 theWeekly 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]

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 theWeekly 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]

At the period of the Restoration the Red Bull was among the first playhouses to reopen. John Downes, in hisRoscius 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 companywas brought together by the famous old Elizabethan actor, Anthony Turner. From theMiddlesex 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.

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 bybusiness. An account of his visit there on March 23, 1661, is thus given in hisDiary:

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 calledAll'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'sThe 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.

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]

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 ashort 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.

From an early seventeenth-centurysurvey of the Whitefriars property(see theopposite 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.

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 inThe Journal of the British Archæological Association, 1910.)

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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 playRam 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, GeorgeAndrowes, 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 ... solicitand persuade your orator to take from the said Barry an assignment of a sixth part of the messuage, premisses, and profits aforesaid.

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]

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'sHumour Out of Breath, Middleton'sFamily of Love,Armin'sThe Two Maids of Moreclacke, Sharpham'sCupid's Whirligig, Markham and Machin'sThe Dumb Knight, Barry'sRam Alley, and Mason'sThe 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 ofByron, 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]

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, andhis 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]

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]

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 hadbeen 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,Epicœne, in which he took the leading rôle.

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'sMap of London, 1677.)

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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:

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