Shakespearean Playhouses. Joseph Quincy Adams

as, thanks to God, there is now no danger of the sickness) to permit and suffer them so to do.[19]

      By such devices as this the players were usually able to secure permission to act "within the city" during the disagreeable months of the winter when the large playhouses in the suburbs were difficult of access.

      1594. Anthony Bacon, the elder brother of Francis, came to lodge in Bishopsgate Street. This fact very much disturbed his good mother, who feared lest his servants might be corrupted by the plays to be seen at the Bull near by.[20]

      1596. William Lambarde, in his Perambulation of Kent,[21] observes that none of those who go "to Paris Garden, the Bell Savage, or Theatre, to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence play, can account of any pleasant spectacle unless they first pay one penny at the gate, another at the entry of the scaffold, and the third for a quiet standing."

      

      1602. On March 31 the Privy Council wrote to the Lord Mayor that the players of the Earl of Oxford and of the Earl of Worcester had been "joined by agreement together in one company, to whom, upon notice of Her Majesty's pleasure, at the suit of the Earl of Oxford, toleration hath been thought meet to be granted." The letter concludes:

      And as the other companies that are allowed, namely of me the Lord Admiral, and the Lord Chamberlain, be appointed their certain houses, and one and no more to each company, so we do straightly require that this third company be likewise [appointed] to one place. And because we are informed the house called the Boar's Head is the place they have especially used and do best like of, we do pray and require you that the said house, namely the Boar's Head, may be assigned unto them.[22]

      That the strong Oxford-Worcester combination should prefer the Boar's Head to the Curtain or the Rose Playhouse,[23] indicates that the inn-yard was not only large, but also well-equipped for acting.

      1604. In a draft of a license to be issued to Queen Anne's Company, those players are allowed to act "as well within their now usual houses, called the Curtain and the Boar's Head, within our County of Middlesex, as in any other playhouse not used by others."[24]

      

      In 1608 the Boar's Head seems to have been occupied by the newly organized Prince Charles's Company. In William Kelly's extracts from the payments of the city of Leicester we find the entry: "Itm. Given to the Prince's Players, of Whitechapel, London, xx s."

      In 1664, as Flecknoe tells us, the Cross Keys and the Bull still gave evidence of their former use as playhouses; perhaps even then they were occasionally let for fencing and other contests. In 1666 the great fire completely destroyed the Bell, the Cross Keys, and the Bell Savage; the Bull, however, escaped, and enjoyed a prosperous career for many years after. Samuel Pepys was numbered among its patrons, and writers of the Restoration make frequent reference to it. What became of the Boar's Head without Aldgate I am unable to learn; its memory, however, is perpetuated to-day in Boar's Head Yard, between Middlesex Street and Goulston Street, Whitechapel.

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

THE HOSTILITY OF THE CITY

       Table of Contents

       AS the actors rapidly increased in number and importance, and as Londoners flocked in ever larger crowds to witness plays, the animosity of two forces was aroused, Puritanism and Civic Government—forces which opposed the drama for different reasons, but with almost equal fervor. And when in the course of time the Governors of the city themselves became Puritans, the combined animosity thus produced was sufficient to drive the players out of London into the suburbs.

      The Puritans attacked the drama as contrary to Holy Writ, as destructive of religion, and as a menace to public morality. Against plays, players, and playgoers they waged in pulpit and pamphlet a warfare characterized by the most intense fanaticism. The charges they made—of ungodliness, idolatrousness, lewdness, profanity, evil practices, enormities, and "abuses" of all kinds—are far too numerous to be noted here; they are interesting chiefly for their unreasonableness and for the violence with which they were urged.

      And, after all, however much the Puritans might rage, they were helpless; authority to restrain acting was vested in the Lord Mayor, his brethren the Aldermen, and the Common Council. The attitude of these city officials towards the drama was unmistakable: they had no more love for the actors than had the Puritans. They found that "plays and players" gave them more trouble than anything else in the entire administration of municipal affairs. The dedication of certain "great inns" to the use of actors and to the entertainment of the pleasure-loving element of the city created new and serious problems for those charged with the preservation of civic law and order. The presence in these inns of private rooms adjoining the yard and balconies gave opportunity for immorality, gambling, fleecing, and various other "evil practices"—an opportunity which, if we may believe the Common Council, was not wasted. Moreover, the proprietors of these inns made a large share of their profits from the beer, ale, and other drinks dispensed to the crowds before, during, and after performances (the proprietor of the Cross Keys, it will be recalled, was described as "citizen and brewer of London"); and the resultant intemperance among "such as frequented the said plays, being the ordinary place of meeting for all vagrant persons, and masterless men that hang about the city, theeves, horse-stealers, whoremongers, cozeners, cony-catching persons, practicers of treason, and such other like,"[25] led to drunkenness, frays, bloodshed, and often to general disorder. Sometimes, as we know, turbulent apprentices and other factions met by appointment at plays for the sole purpose of starting riots or breaking open jails. "Upon Whitsunday," writes the Recorder to Lord Burghley, "by reason no plays were the same day, all the city was quiet."[26]

      Trouble of an entirely different kind arose when in the hot months of the summer the plague was threatening. The meeting together at plays of "great multitudes of the basest sort of people" served to spread the infection throughout the city more quickly and effectively than could anything else. On such occasions it was exceedingly difficult for the municipal authorities to control the actors, who were at best a stubborn and unruly lot; and often the pestilence had secured a full start before acting could be suppressed.

      These troubles, and others which cannot here be mentioned, made one of the Lord Mayors exclaim in despair: "The Politique State and Government of this City by no one thing is so greatly annoyed and disquieted as by players and plays, and the disorders which follow thereupon."[27]

      This annoyance, serious enough in itself, was aggravated by the fact that most of the troupes were under the patronage of great noblemen, and some were even high in favor with the Queen. As a result, the attempts on the part of the Lord Mayor and his Aldermen to regulate the players were often interfered with by other or higher authority. Sometimes it was a particular nobleman, whose request was not to be ignored, who intervened in behalf of his troupe; most often, however, it was the Privy Council, representing the Queen and the nobility in general, which championed the cause of the actors and countermanded the decrees of the Lord Mayor and his brethren. One of the most notable things in the City's Remembrancia is this long conflict of authority between the Common Council and the Privy Council over actors and acting.

      In 1573 the situation seems to have approached a crisis. The Lord Mayor had become strongly puritanical, and in his efforts to suppress "stage-plays" was placing more and more obstacles in the way of the actors. The temper of the Mayor is revealed in two entries in the records of the Privy Council. On July 13, 1573, the Lords of the Council sent a letter to him requesting him "to permit liberty to certain Italian players"; six days later they sent a second letter, repeating the request, and "marveling that he did it not at their first request."[28] His continued efforts to suppress the drama finally led the troupes to appeal for relief to the Privy Council. On March 22, 1574, the Lords of the Council dispatched "a letter to the Lord Mayor to advertise their Lordships what causes he hath to restrain plays." His answer has not been