Chapter XI: The Second Blackfriars (1)

In 1596 Burbage's lease of the plot of ground on which he had erected the Theatre was drawing to a close, and all his efforts at a renewal had failed. The owner of the land, Gyles Alleyn, having, in spite of the terms of the original contract, refused to extend the lease until 1606, was craftily plotting for a substantial increase in the rental; moreover, having become puritanical in his attitude towards the drama, he was insisting that if the lease were renewed, the Theatre should be used as a playhouse for five years only, and then should either be torn down, or be converted into tenements. Burbage tentatively agreed to pay the increased rental, but, of course, he could not possibly agree to the second demand; and when all negotiations on this point proved futile, he realized that he must do something at once to meet the awkward situation.

In the twenty years that had elapsed since the erection of the Theatre and the Curtain in Holywell, the Bankside had been developed as a theatrical district, and the Rose and the Swan, not to mention the Bear Garden, had made the south side of the river the popular place for entertainments. Naturally, therefore, any one contemplating the erection of a playhouse would immediately think of this locality. Burbage, however, was a man of ideas. He believed that he could improve on the Bankside as a site for his theatre. He remembered how, at the outset of his career as a theatrical manager, he had had to face competition with Richard Farrant who had opened a small "private" playhouse in Blackfriars. Although that building had not been used as a "public" playhouse, and had been closed up after a few years of sore tribulation, it had revealed to Burbage the possibilities of the Blackfriars precinct for theatrical purposes. In the first place, the precinct was not under the jurisdiction of the city, so that actors would not there be subject to the interference of the Lord Mayor and his Aldermen. As Stevens writes in his _History of Ancient Abbeys, Monasteries, etc._: "All the inhabitants within it were subject to none but the King ... neither the Mayor, nor the sheriffs, nor any other officers of the City of London had the least jurisdiction or authority therein." Blackfriars, therefore, in this fundamental respect, was just as desirable a location for theatres as was Holywell to the north of the city, or the Bankside to the south. In the second place, Blackfriars had a decided advantage over those two suburban localities in that it was "scituated in the bosome of the Cittie,"[277] near St. Paul's Cathedral, the centre of London life, and hence was readily accessible to playgoers, even during the disagreeable winter season. In the third place, the locality was distinctly fashionable. To give some notion of the character of its inhabitants, I record below the names of a few of those who lived in or near the conventual buildings at various times after the dissolution: George Brooke, Lord Cobham; William Brooke, Lord Cobham, Lord Chamberlain of the Queen's Household; Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports; Sir Thomas Cheney, Treasurer of the Queen's Household, and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports; Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain of the Queen's Household; George Carey, Lord Hunsdon, who as Lord Chamberlain was the patron of Shakespeare's troupe; Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the Revels; Sir Henry Jerningham, Fee Chamberlain to the Queen's Highness; Sir Willam More, Chamberlain of the Exchequer; Lord Zanche; Sir John Portynary; Sir William Kingston; Sir Francis Bryan; Sir John Cheeke; Sir George Harper; Sir Philip Hoby, Lady Anne Gray; Sir Robert Kyrkham; Lady Perrin; Sir Christopher More; Sir Henry Neville; Sir Thomas Saunders; Sir Jerome Bowes; and Lady Jane Guildford.[278] Obviously the locality was free from the odium which the public always associated with Shoreditch and the Bankside, the recognized homes of the London stews.[279]

[Footnote 277: The Petition of 1619, in The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 93.]

[Footnote 278: It is true that poor people also, feather-dealers and such-like, lived in certain parts of Blackfriars, but this, of course, did not affect the reputation of the precinct as the residence of noblemen.]

[Footnote 279: In Samuel Rowlands's _Humors Looking Glass_ (1608), a rich country gull is represented as filling his pockets with money and coming to London. Here a servant "of the Newgate variety" shows him the sights of the city:

Brought him to the Bankside where bears do dwell,
And unto Shoreditch where the whores keep hell.]

Thus, a playhouse erected in the precinct of Blackfriars would escape all the grave disadvantages of situation which attached to the existing playhouses in the suburbs, and, on the other hand, would gain several very important advantages.

Burbage's originality, however, did not stop with the choice of Blackfriars as the site of his new theatre; he determined to improve on the form of building as well. The open-air structure which he had designed in 1576, and which had since been copied in all public theatres, had serious disadvantages in that it offered no protection from the weather. Burbage now resolved to provide a large "public" playhouse, fully roofed in, with the entire audience and the actors protected against the inclemency of the sky and the cold of winter. In short, his dream was of a theatre centrally located, comfortably heated, and, for its age, luxuriously appointed.

With characteristic energy and courage he at once set about the task of realizing this dream. He found in the Blackfriars precinct a large building which, he thought, would admirably serve his purpose. This building was none other than the old Frater of the Monastery, a structure one hundred and ten feet long and fifty-two feet wide, with stone walls three feet thick, and a flat roof covered with lead. From the Loseley documents, which M. Feuillerat has placed at the disposal of scholars,[280] we are now able to reconstruct the old Frater building, and to point out exactly that portion which was made into a playhouse.[281]

[Footnote 280: _Blackfriars Records_, in The Malone Society's _Collections_, (1913).]

[Footnote 281: For a reconstruction of the Priory buildings and grounds, and for specific evidence of statements made in the following paragraphs, the reader is referred to J.Q. Adams, _The Conventual Buildings of Blackfriars, London_, in the University of North Carolina _Studies in Philology_, XIV, 64.]

At the time of the dissolution, the top story consisted of a single large room known as the "Upper Frater," and also as the "Parliament Chamber" from the fact that the English Parliament met here on several occasions; here, also, was held the trial before Cardinals Campeggio and Wolsey for the divorce of the unhappy Queen Catherine and Henry VIII--a scene destined to be reenacted in the same building by Shakespeare and his fellows many years later. In 1550 the room was granted, with various other properties in Blackfriars, to Sir Thomas Cawarden.[282]

[Footnote 282: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, pp. 7, 12.]

The Playhouse was made by combining the Hall and the Parlor.]

The space below the Parliament Chamber was divided into three units. At the northern end was a "Hall" extending the width of the building. It is mentioned in the Survey[283] of 1548 as "a Hall ... under the said Frater"; and again in the side-note: "Memorandum, my Lorde Warden claimeth the said Hall." Just to the south of the Hall was a "Parlor," or dining-chamber, "where commonly the friars did use to break their fast." It is described in the Survey as being "under the said Frater, of the same length and breadth." The room could not have been of the "same length and breadth" as the great Parliament Chamber, for not only would such dimensions be absurd for an informal dining-room, but, as we are clearly told, the "Infirmary" was also under the Parliament Chamber, and was approximately one-third the size of the latter.[284] Accordingly I have interpreted the phrase, "of the same length and breadth," to mean that the Parlor was square. When the room was sold to Burbage it was said to be fifty-two feet in length from north to south, which is exactly the breadth of the building from east to west. The Parlor, as well as the Hall, was claimed by the Lord Warden; and both were granted to Sir Thomas Cawarden in 1550.

[Footnote 283: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, p. 7.]

[Footnote 284: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, pp. 105-06.]

South of the Parlor was the Infirmary, described as being "at the western corner of the Inner Cloister" (of which the Frater building constituted the western side), as being under the Parliament Chamber, and as being approximately one-third the size of the Parliament Chamber. The Infirmary seems to have been structurally distinct from the Hall and Parlor.[285] It was three stories high, consisting of a "room beneath the Fermary," the Infirmary itself, a "room above the same";[286] while the Parliament Chamber, extending itself "over the room above the Fermary," constituted a fourth story. Furthermore, not only was the Infirmary a structural unit distinct from the Hall and the Parlor at the north, but it never belonged to Cawarden or More, and hence was not included in the sale to Burbage. It was granted in 1545 to Lady Mary Kingston,[287] from whom it passed to her son, Sir Henry Jerningham, then to Anthony Kempe, who later sold it to Lord Hunsdon;[288] and at the time the playhouse was built, the Infirmary was still in the occupation of Hunsdon.

[Footnote 285: In all probability it was separated from the Hall and Parlor by a passage leading through the Infirmary into the Inner Cloister yard.]

[Footnote 286: One reason for the greater height may have been the slope of the ground towards the river; a second reason was the unusual height of the Parlor.]

[Footnote 287: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, p. 105.]

[Footnote 288: _Ibid._, p. 124.]

At the northern end of the Frater building, and extending westward, was a narrow structure fifty feet in length, sixteen feet in breadth, and three stories in height, regarded as a "part of the frater parcel." The middle story, which was on the same level with the Parliament Chamber, was known as the "Duchy Chamber," possibly because of its use in connection with the sittings of Parliament, or with the meetings of the Privy Council there. The building was granted to Cawarden in 1550.[289]

[Footnote 289: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, p. 8.]

Upon the death of Cawarden all his Blackfriars holdings passed into the possession of Sir William More. From More, in 1596, James Burbage purchased those sections of the Frater building which had originally been granted to Cawarden[290]--that is, all the Frater building except the Infirmary--for the sum of L600, in modern valuation about $25,000.[291] Evidently he had profited by Farrant's experience with More and by his own experience with Gyles Alleyn, and had determined to risk no more leases, but in the future to be his own landlord, cost what it might.

[Footnote 290: For the deed of sale see _ibid._, p. 60.]

[Footnote 291: It should be observed, however, that Burbage paid only L100 down, and that he immediately mortgaged the property for more than L200. The playhouse was not free from debt until 1605. See Wallace, _The First London Theatre_, p. 23.]

The properties which he thus secured were:

(1) The Parliament Chamber, extending over the Hall, Parlor, and Infirmary. This great chamber, it will be recalled, had previously been divided by Cawarden into the Frith and Cheeke Lodgings;[292] but now it was arranged as a single tenement of seven rooms, and was occupied by the eminent physician William de Lawne:[293] "All those seven great upper rooms as they are now divided, being all upon one floor, and sometime being one great and entire room, with the roof over the same, covered with lead." Up into this tenement led a special pair of stairs which made it wholly independent of the rest of the building.

[Footnote 292: The northern section of the Cheeke Lodging (a portion of the old Buttery) which had constituted Farrant's private theatre, and which was no real part of the Frater building, had been converted by More into the Pipe Office.]

[Footnote 293: A prosperous physician. His son was one of the illustrious founders of the Society of Apothecaries, and one of its chief benefactors. His portrait may be seen to-day in Apothecaries' Hall. See C.R.B. Barrett, _The History of the Society of Apothecaries of London_.]

(2) The friar's "Parlor," now made into a tenement occupied by Thomas Bruskett, and called "the Middle Rooms, or Middle Stories"--possibly from the fact that it was the middle of three tenements, possibly from the fact that having two cellars under its northern end it was the middle of three stories. It is described as being fifty-two feet in length north and south, and thirty-seven feet in width. Why a strip of nine feet should have been detached on the eastern side is not clear; but that this strip was also included in the sale to Burbage is shown by later documents.

(3) The ancient "Hall" adjoining the "Parlor" on the north, and now made into two rooms. These rooms were combined with the ground floor of the Duchy Chamber building to constitute a tenement occupied by Peter Johnson: "All those two lower rooms now in the occupation of the said Peter Johnson, lying directly under part of the said seven great upper rooms." The dimensions are not given, but doubtless the two rooms together extended the entire width of the building and were approximately as broad as the Duchy Chamber building, with which they were united.

(4) The Duchy Chamber building "at the north end of the said seven great upper rooms, and at the west side thereof." At the time of the sale the ground floor of this building was occupied by Peter Johnson, who had also the Hall adjoining it on the west; the middle story was occupied by Charles Bradshaw; and the top story by Edward Merry.[294]

[Footnote 294: Mr. Wallace's description of the building and the way in which it was converted into a playhouse (_The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, pp. 37-41) is incorrect. For the various details cited above see the deed of sale to Burbage.]

Out of this heterogeneous property Burbage was confronted with the problem of making a playhouse. Apparently he regarded the Parliament Chamber as too low, or too inaccessible for the purposes of a theatre; this part of his property, therefore, he kept as a lodging, and for many years it served as a dormitory for the child-actors. The Duchy Chamber building, being small and detached from the Frater building, he reserved also as a lodging.[295] In the Hall and the Parlor, however, he saw the possibility of a satisfactory auditorium. Let us therefore examine this section of the Frater building more in detail, and trace its history up to the time of the purchase.

[Footnote 295: This may have contained the two rooms in which Evans lived, and "the schoolhouse and the chamber over the same," which are described (see the documents in Fleay's _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, p. 210 ff.) as being "severed from the said great hall." In another document this schoolhouse is described as "schola, anglice _schoolhouse_, ad borealem finem Aulae praedictae." (Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 40.)]

The Parlor was described as "a great room, paved," and was said to have been "used and occupied by the friars themselves to their own proper use as a parlor to dine and sup in."[296] Sir John Portynary, whose house adjoined the Duchy Chamber, tells us that in 1550, when King Edward granted the Blackfriars property to Cawarden, "Sir Thomas Cawarden, knight, entered into the same house in the name of all that which the King had given him within the said friars, and made his lodging there; and about that time did invite this examinant and his wife to supper there, together with diverse other gentlemen; and they all supped together with the said Sir Thomas Cawarden, in the same room [the Parlor] where the said school of fence is now kept, and did there see a play."[297]

[Footnote 296: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, pp. 43, 47, 48.]

[Footnote 297: _Ibid._, p. 52.]

Later Cawarden leased the Parlor to a keeper of an ordinary: "One Woodman did hold the said house where the said school of fence is kept, and another house thereby of Sir Thomas Cawarden, and in the other room kept an ordinary table, and had his way to the same through the said house where the said school of fence is kept."[298]

[Footnote 298: _Ibid._, p. 51.]

In 1563 William Joyner established in the rooms the school of fence mentioned above, which was still flourishing in 1576.[299]

[Footnote 299: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, p. 121.]

When in 1583 John Lyly became interested in the First Blackfriars Playhouse, he obtained a lease of the rooms, but it is not clear for what purpose. Later he sold the lease to Rocho Bonetti, the Italian fencing-master, who established there his famous school of fence.[300] In George Silver's _Paradoxes of Defence_, 1599, is a description of Bonetti's school, which will, I think, help us to reconstruct in our imagination the "great room, paved" which was destined to become Shakespeare's playhouse:

He caused to be fairely drawne and set round about the
schoole all the Noblemen's and Gentlemen's Armes that were
his schollers, and, hanging right under their Armes, their
Rapiers, Daggers, Gloves of Male, and Gantlets. Also he had
benches and stooles, the roome being verie large, for
Gentlemen to sit about his schoole to behold his teaching.

He taught none commonly under twentie, fortie, fifty, or an
hundred pounds. And because all things should be verie
necessary for the Noblemen and Gentlemen, he had in his
schoole a large square table, with a green carpet, done
round with a verie brode rich fringe of gold; alwaies
standing upon it a verie faire standish covered with crimson
velvet, with inke, pens, pen-dust, and sealing-waxe, and
quiers of verie excellent fine paper, gilded, readie for the
Noblemen and Gentlemen (upon occasion) to write their
letters, being then desirous to follow their fight, to send
their men to dispatch their businesse.

And to know how the time passed, he had in one corner of his
Schoole, a Clocke, with a verie faire large diall; he had
within that Schoole a roome the which he called his privie
schoole, with manie weapons therein, where he did teach his
schollers his secret fight, after he had perfectly taught
them their rules. He was verie much loved in the Court.

[Footnote 300: _Ibid._, p. 122.]

We are further told by Silver that Bonetti took it upon himself "to hit anie Englishman with a thrust upon anie button." It is no wonder that Shakespeare ridiculed him in _Romeo and Juliet_ as "the very butcher of a silk button," and laughed at his school and his fantastic fencing-terms:

_Mercutio._ Ah! the immortal "passado"! the "punto reverso"!
the "hay"!

_Benvolio._ The what?

_Mercutio._ The pox of such antick, lisping, affecting
fantasticoes! These new tuners of accents!--"By Jesu, a very
good blade!"

At the date of the sale to Burbage, February 4, 1596, the fencing school of Bonetti, had become "those rooms and lodgings, with the kitchen thereunto adjoining, called the Middle Rooms or Middle Stories, late being in the tenure or occupation of Rocco Bonetti, and now being in the tenure or occupation of Thomas Bruskett, gentleman."

To make his playhouse Burbage removed all the partitions in the Middle Rooms, and restored the Parlor to its original form--a great room covering the entire breadth of the building, and extending fifty-two feet in length from north to south. To this he added the Hall at the north, which then existed as two rooms in the occupation of Peter Johnson. The Hall and Parlor when combined made an auditorium described as "per estimacionem in longitudine ab australe ad borealem partem eiusdem sexaginta et sex pedes assissae sit plus sive minus, et in latitudine ab occidentale ad orientalem partem eiusdem quadraginto et sex pedes assissae sit plus sive minus."[301] The forty-six feet of width corresponds to the interior width of the Frater building, for although it was fifty-two feet wide in outside measurement, the stone walls were three feet thick. The sixty-six feet of length probably represents the fifty-two feet of the Parlor plus the breadth of the Hall.

[Footnote 301: Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 39, note 1.]

The ceiling of these two rooms must have been of unusual height. The Infirmary, which was below the Parliament Chamber at the south, was three stories high; and the windows of the Parlor, if we may believe Pierce the Ploughman, were "wrought as a chirche":

An halle for an heygh kinge . an household to holden,
With brode bordes abouten . y-benched well clene,
With windowes of glas . wrought as a chirche.

This remnant of the old monastery was discovered in 1872 on the rebuilding of the offices of _The Times_. It illustrates the substantial character of the Blackfriars buildings, and may even be a part of the old Frater, for _The Times_ occupies that portion of the monastery. The windows of the Frater, according to Pierce the Ploughman, were "wrought as a chirche." (From a painting in the Guildhall Museum.)]

As a result Burbage was able to construct within the auditorium at least two galleries,[302] after the manner of the public theatres. The Parliament Chamber above was kept, as I have stated, for residential purposes. This is why the various legal documents almost invariably refer to the playhouse as "that great hall or room, with the rooms over the same."[303]

[Footnote 302: Mr. Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 42, quotes from the Epilogue to Marston's _The Dutch Courtesan_, acted at Blackfriars, "And now, my fine Heliconian gallants, and you, my worshipful friends in the middle region," and adds that the "reference to 'the middle region' makes it clear there were three" galleries. Does it not, however, indicate that there were only two galleries?]

[Footnote 303: See the documents printed in Fleay's _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, pp. 211, 215, 240, etc. Mr. Wallace, however (_The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 40 ff.), would have us believe that an additional story was added: "the roof was changed, and rooms, probably of the usual dormer sort, were built above." I am quite sure he is mistaken.]

The main entrance to the playhouse was at the north, over the "great yard" which extended from the Pipe Office to Water Lane.[304] The stage was opposite this entrance, or at the southern end of the hall, as is shown by one of the documents printed by Mr. Wallace.[305] Since the building was not, like the other playhouses of London, open to the sky, the illumination was supplied by candles, hung in branches over the stage; as Gerschow noted, after visiting Blackfriars, "alle bey Lichte agiret, welches ein gross Ansehen macht."[306] The obvious advantage of artificial light for producing beautiful stage effects must have added not a little to the popularity of the Blackfriars Playhouse.

[Footnote 304: Cf. Playhouse Yard in the London of to-day.]

[Footnote 305: _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 43, note 3.]

[Footnote 306: _The Diary of the Duke of Stettin-Pomerania_, in _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (1892), VI, 26.]

The cost of all the alterations and the equipment could hardly have been less than L300, so that the total cost of the property was at least L900, or in modern valuation approximately $35,000. Burbage's sons, in referring to the building years later, declared that their father had "made it into a playhouse with great charge."

"And," they added significantly, "with great trouble." The aristocratic inhabitants of the Blackfriars precinct did not welcome the appearance in their midst of a "public," or, as some more scornfully designated it, a "common," playhouse; and when they discovered the intentions of Burbage, they wrote a strong petition to the Privy Council against the undertaking. This petition, presented to the Council in November, 1596, I quote below in part:

To the right honorable the Lords and others of Her Majesty's
most honorable Privy Council.--Humbly shewing and beseeching
your honors, the inhabitants of the precinct of the
Blackfriars, London, that whereas one Burbage hath lately
bought certain rooms in the same precinct near adjoining
unto the dwelling houses of the right honorable the Lord
Chamberlaine [Lord Cobham] and the Lord of Hunsdon, which
rooms the said Burbage is now altering, and meaneth very
shortly to convert and turn the same into a common
playhouse, which will grow to be a very great annoyance and
trouble, not only to all the noblemen and gentlemen
thereabout inhabiting, but also a general inconvenience to
all the inhabitants of the same precinct, both by reason of
the great resort and gathering together of all manner of
vagrant and lewd persons ... as also for that there hath not
at any time heretofore been used any common playhouse within
the same precinct, but that now all players being banished
by the Lord Mayor from playing within the city ... they now
think to plant themselves in liberties, etc.[307]

[Footnote 307: For the full document see Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 304. For the date, see The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 91.]

The first person to sign the petition was the Dowager Lady Elizabeth Russell; the second was none other than George Cary, Lord Hunsdon, at the time the patron of Burbage's company of actors.[308] It is not surprising, therefore, that as a result of this petition the Lords of the Privy Council (of which Lord Cobham was a conspicuous member) issued an order in which they "forbad the use of the said house for plays."[309] This order wrecked the plans of Burbage quite as effectively as did the stubbornness of Gyles Alleyn.

[Footnote 308: Shortly after this he was appointed Lord Chamberlain, under which name his troupe was subsequently known.]

[Footnote 309: Petition of 1619, The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 91.]

Possibly the mental distress Burbage suffered at the hands of the Privy Council and of Gyles Alleyn affected his health; at least he did not long survive this last sling of fortune. In February, 1597, just before the expiration of the Alleyn lease, he died, leaving the Theatre to his son Cuthbert, the bookseller, Blackfriars to his actor-son, Richard, the star of Shakespeare's troupe, and his troubles to both. With good reason Cuthbert declared many years later that the ultimate success of London theatres had "been purchased by the infinite cost and pains of the family of Burbages."

When later in 1597 the Lord Chamberlain's Players were forced to leave Cuthbert's Theatre, Richard Burbage was not able to establish them in his comfortable Blackfriars house; instead, they first went to the old Curtain in Shoreditch, and then, under the leadership of the Burbage sons, erected for themselves a brand-new home on the Bankside, called "The Globe."

The order of the Privy Council had summarily forbidden the use of Blackfriars as a "public" playhouse. Its proprietor, however, Richard Burbage, might take advantage of the precedent established in the days of Farrant, and let the building for use as a "private" theatre.[310] Exactly when he was first able to lease the building as a "private" house we do not know, for the history of the building between 1597 (when it was completed) and 1600 (when it was certainly occupied by the Children of the Chapel) is very indistinct. We have no definite evidence to connect the Chapel Children, or, indeed, any specific troupe, with Blackfriars during these years. Yet prior to 1600 the building seems to have been used for acting. Richard Burbage himself seems to say so. In leasing the building to Evans, in 1600, he says that he considered "with himself that" Evans could not pay the rent "except the said Evans could erect and keep a company of playing-boys or others to play plays and interludes in the said playhouse in such sort _as before time had been there used_."[311] Now, unless this refers to Farrant's management of the Chapel Boys in Blackfriars--nearly a quarter of a century earlier--it means that before 1600 some actors, presumably "playing-boys," had used Burbage's theatre. Moreover, there seems to be evidence to show that the troupe thus vaguely referred to was under the management of Evans; for, in referring to his lease of Blackfriars in 1600, Evans describes the playhouse as "then or late in the tenure or occupation of your said oratour."[312] What these vague references mean we cannot now with our limited knowledge determine. But there is not sufficient evidence to warrant the usual assumption that Evans and Giles had opened the Blackfriars with the Children of the Chapel in 1597.[313]

[Footnote 310: The constables and other officers in the Petition of 1619 say: "The owner of the said playhouse, doth under the name of a private house ... convert the said house to a public playhouse." (The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 91.)]

[Footnote 311: Fleay, _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, p. 234.]

[Footnote 312: _Ibid._, p. 211.]

[Footnote 313: This theory has been urged by Fleay, by Mr. Wallace in _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, and by others.]

The known history of Blackfriars as a regular theatre may be said to begin in the autumn of 1600. On September 2 of that year, Henry Evans signed a lease of the playhouse for a period of twenty-one years, at an annual rental of L40. This interesting step on the part of Evans calls for a word of explanation as to his plans.

The Children of the Chapel Royal, who had attained such glory at Blackfriars during the Farrant-Hunnis-Evans-Oxford-Lyly regime, had thereafter sunk into dramatic insignificance. Since 1584, when Lyly was forced to give up his playhouse, they had not presented a play at Court. Probably they did not entirely cease to act, for they can be vaguely traced in the provinces during a part of this period; but their dramatic glory was almost wholly eclipsed. Evans, who had managed the Boys under Hunnis, Oxford, and Lyly, hoped now to reestablish the Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars as they had been in his younger days. Like James Burbage, he was a man of ideas. His plan was to interest in his undertaking the Master of the Chapel, Nathaniel Giles, who had succeeded to the office at the death of Hunnis in 1597, and then to make practical use of the patent granted to the Masters of the Children to take up boys for Her Majesty's service. Such a patent, in the normal course of events, had been granted to Giles, as it had been to his predecessors. It read in part as follows:

Elizabeth, by the grace of God, &c., to all mayors,
sheriffs, bailiffs, constables, and all other our officers,
greeting. For that it is meet that our Chapel Royal should
be furnished with well-singing children from time to time,
we have, and by these presents do authorize our
well-beloved servant, Nathaniel Giles, Master of our
Children of our said Chapel, or his deputy, being by his
bill subscribed and sealed, so authorized, and having this
our present commission with him, to take such and so many
children as he, or his sufficient deputy, shall think meet,
in all cathedral, collegiate, parish churches, chapels, or
any other place or places, as well within liberty as
without, within this our realm of England, whatsoever they
be.[314]

[Footnote 314: The full commission is printed in Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 61.]

In such a commission Evans saw wonderful possibilities. He reasoned that since the Queen had forced upon the Chapel Children the twofold service of singing at royal worship and of acting plays for royal entertainment, this twofold service should be met by a twofold organization, the one part designed mainly to furnish sacred music, the other designed mainly to furnish plays. Such a dual organization, it seemed to him, was now more or less necessary, since the number of boy choristers in the Chapel Royal was limited to twelve, whereas the acting of plays demanded at least twice as many. Once the principle that the Chapel Royal should supply the Queen with plays was granted, the commission could be used to furnish the necessary actors; and the old fiction, established by Farrant and Hunnis, of using a "private" playhouse as a means of exercising or training the boys for Court service, would enable the promoters to give public performances and thus handsomely reimburse themselves for their trouble.

Such was Evans's scheme, based upon his former experience with the Children at Farrant's Blackfriars, and suggested, perhaps, by the existence of Burbage's Blackfriars now forbidden to the "common" players. He presented his scheme to Giles, the Master of the Children; and Giles, no doubt, presented it at Court; for he would hardly dare thus abuse the Queen's commission, or thus make a public spectacle of the royal choristers, without in some way first consulting Her Majesty, and securing at least her tacit consent. That Giles and Evans did secure royal permission to put their scheme into operation is certain, although the exact nature of this permission is not clear. Later, for misdemeanors on the part of the management, the Star Chamber ordered "that all assurances made to the said Evans concerning the said house, or plays, or interludes, should be utterly void, and to be delivered up to be cancelled."[315]

[Footnote 315: Fleay, _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, p. 248.]

Armed with these written "assurances," and with the royal commission to take up children, Evans and Giles began to form their company. This explains the language used by Heminges and Burbage: "let the said playhouse unto Henry Evans ... who intended then presently to erect or set up a company of boys."[316] Their method of recruiting players may best be told by Henry Clifton, in his complaint to the Queen:

But so it is, most excellent Sovereign, that the said
Nathaniel Giles, confederating himself with one James
Robinson, Henry Evans, and others,[317] yet unto Your
Majesty's said subject unknown how [many], by color of Your
Majesty's said letters patents, and the trust by Your
Highness thereby to him, the said Nathaniel Giles,
committed, endeavoring, conspiring, and complotting how to
oppress diverse of Your Majesty's humble and faithful
subjects, and thereby to make unto themselves an unlawful
gain and benefit, they, the said confederates, devised,
conspired, and concluded, for their own corrupt gain and
lucre, to erect, set up, furnish, and maintain a playhouse,
or place in the Blackfriars, within Your Majesty's city of
London; and to the end they might the better furnish their
said plays and interludes with children, whom they thought
most fittest to act and furnish the said plays, they, the
said confederates, abusing the authority and trust by Your
Highness to him, the said Nathaniel Giles, and his deputy or
deputies, by Your Highness's said letters patents given and
reposed, hath, sithence Your Majesty's last free and general
pardon, most wrongfully, unduly, and unjustly taken diverse
and several children from diverse and sundry schools of
learning and other places, and apprentices to men of trade
from their masters, no way fitting for Your Majesty's
service in or for your Chapel Royal, but the children have
so taken and employed in acting and furnishing of the said
plays and interludes, so by them complotted and agreed to
be erected, furnished, and maintained, against the wills of
the said children, their parents, tutors, masters, and
governors, and to the no small grief and oppressions [of]
Your Majesty's true and faithful subjects. Amongst which
numbers, so by the persons aforesaid and their agents so
unjustly taken, used and employed, they have unduly taken
and so employed one John Chappell, a grammar school scholar
of one Mr. Spykes School near Cripplegate, London; John
Motteram, a grammar scholar in the free school at
Westminster; Nathaniel Field, a scholar of a grammar school
in London kept by one Mr. Monkaster;[318] Alvery Trussell,
an apprentice to one Thomas Gyles; one Phillipp Pykman and
[one] Thomas Grymes, apprentices to Richard and George
Chambers; Salmon Pavy,[319] apprentice to one Peerce; being
children no way able or fit for singing, nor by any the said
confederates endeavoured to be taught to sing, but by them,
the said confederates, abusively employed, as aforesaid,
only in plays and interludes.[320]

[Footnote 316: _Ibid._, p. 234. Note that Evans is not to "continue" a troupe there, as Fleay and Wallace believe, but to "erect" one.]

[Footnote 317: Possibly Robinson and the "others" were merely deputies.]

[Footnote 318: Field became later famous both as an actor and playwright. His portrait is preserved at Dulwich College.]

[Footnote 319: Salathiel Pavy, whose excellent acting is celebrated in Jonson's tender elegy, quoted in part below.]

[Footnote 320: Star Chamber Proceedings, printed in full by Fleay, _op. cit._, p. 127.]

In spite of the obvious animosity inspiring Clifton's words, we get from his complaint a clear notion of how Evans and Giles supplemented the Children of the Chapel proper with actors. In a short time they brought together at Blackfriars a remarkable troupe of boy-players, who, with Jonson and Chapman as their poets, began to astonish London. For, in spite of certain limitations, "the children" could act with a charm and a grace that often made them more attractive than their grown-up rivals. Middleton advises the London gallant "to call in at the Blackfriars, where he should see a nest of boys able to ravish a man."[321] Jonson gives eloquent testimony to the power of little Salathiel Pavy to portray the character of old age:

Years he numbered scarce thirteen
When Fates turned cruel,
Yet three filled zodiacs had he been
The stage's jewel;
And did act, what now we moan,
Old men so duly,
As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one,
He played so truly.[322]

[Footnote 321: _Father Hubbard's Tales_ (ed. Bullen, VIII, 77).]

[Footnote 322: Jonson, _Epigrams_, CXX, _An Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy, a Child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel_.]

And Samuel Pepys records the effectiveness of a child-actor in the role of women: "One Kinaston, a boy, acted the Duke's sister, but made the loveliest lady that ever I saw in my life."[323]

[Footnote 323: _Diary_, August 18, 1660.]

Moreover, to expert acting these Boys of the Chapel Royal added the charms of vocal and instrumental music, for which many of them had been specially trained. The Duke of Stettin-Pomerania, who upon his grand tour of the European countries in 1602 attended a play at Blackfriars, bears eloquent testimony to the musical powers of the children: "For a whole hour before the play begins, one listens to charming [_koestliche_] instrumental music played on organs, lutes, pandorins, mandolins, violins, and flutes; as, indeed, on this occasion, a boy sang _cum voce tremula_ to the accompaniment of a bass-viol, so delightfully [_lieblich_] that, if the Nuns at Milan did not excel him, we had not heard his equal in our travels."[324] In addition, the Children were provided with splendid apparel--though not at the cost of the Queen, as Mr. Wallace contends.[325] Naturally they became popular. On January 6, 1601, they were summoned to Court to entertain Her Majesty--the first recorded performance of the Children of the Chapel at Court since the year 1584, when Sir William More closed the first Blackfriars.

[Footnote 324: _The Diary of the Duke of Stettin-Pomerania_, printed in _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (1890). The diary was written by the Duke's tutor, Gerschow, at the express command of the Duke.]

[Footnote 325: It is hard to believe Mr. Wallace's novel theory that the Children of the Chapel were subsidized by Elizabeth, as presented in his otherwise valuable _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_. Burbage and Heminges knew nothing of such a royal patronage at Blackfriars (see Fleay, _op. cit._, p. 236), nor did Kirkham, the Yeoman of the Revels (_ibid._, p. 248). Kirkham and his partners spent L600 on apparel, etc., according to Kirkham's statement.]

Perhaps the most interesting testimony to the success of the Chapel Children in their new playhouse is that uttered by Shakespeare in _Hamlet_ (1601), in which he speaks of the performances by the "little eyases" as a "late innovation." The success of the "innovation" had driven Shakespeare and his troupe of grown-up actors to close the Globe and travel in the country, even though they had _Hamlet_ as an attraction. The good-natured way in which Shakespeare treats the situation is worthy of special observation:

_Ham._ What players are they?

_Ros._ Even those you were wont to take delight in, the
tragedians of the city.[326]

_Ham._ How chances it they travel? their residence, both in
reputation and profit, was better both ways.[327]

_Ros._ I think their inhibition comes by means of the late
innovation.

_Ham._ Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was
in the city? are they so followed?

_Ros._ No, indeed, they are not!

_Ham._ How comes it? do they grow rusty?

_Ros._ Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but
there is, sir, an aerie of children,[328] little eyases,
that cry out on the top of question, and are most
tyrannically clapped for 't. These are now the fashion, and
so berattle the "common stages"--so they call them--that
many wearing rapiers [i.e., gallants] are afraid of
goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.

_Ham._ What! are they children? who maintains 'em? how are
they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than
they can sing?

[Footnote 326: The Children were acting light comedies such as _Cynthia's Revels_; the Lord Chamberlain's Men were acting _Hamlet_.]

[Footnote 327: Shakespeare's troupe is known to have been traveling in the spring of 1601.]

[Footnote 328: Cf. Middleton's _Father Hubbard's Tales_, already quoted, "a nest of boys." Possibly the idea was suggested by the fact that the children were lodged and fed in the building.]

The passage ends with the question from Hamlet: "Do the boys carry it away?" which gives Rosencrantz an opportunity to pun on the sign of the Globe Playhouse: "Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load, too."

Shortly after the great dramatist had penned these words, the management of Blackfriars met with disaster. The cause, however, went back to December 13, 1600, when Giles and Evans were gathering their players. In their overweening confidence they made a stupid blunder in "taking up" for their troupe the only son and heir of Henry Clifton, a well-to-do gentleman of Norfolk, who had come to London for the purpose of educating the boy. Clifton says in his complaint that Giles, Evans, and their confederates, "well knowing that your subject's said son had no manner of sight in song, nor skill in music," on the 13th day of December, 1600, did "waylay the said Thomas Clifton" as he was "walking quietly from your subject's said house towards the said school," and "with great force and violence did seize and surprise, and him with like force and violence did, to the great terror and hurt of him, the said Thomas Clifton, haul, pull, drag, and carry away to the said playhouse." As soon as the father learned of this, he hurried to the playhouse and "made request to have his said son released." But Giles and Evans "utterly and scornfully refused to do" this. Whereupon Clifton threatened to complain to the Privy Council. But Evans and Giles "in very scornful manner willed your said subject to complain to whom he would." Clifton suggested that "it was not fit that a gentleman of his sort should have his son and heir (and that his only son) to be so basely used." Giles and Evans "most arrogantly then and there answered that they had authority sufficient so to take any nobleman's son in this land"; and further to irritate the father, they immediately put into young Thomas's hand "a scroll of paper, containing part of one of their said plays or interludes, and him, the said Thomas Clifton, commanded to learn the same by heart," with the admonition that "if he did not obey the said Evans, he should be surely whipped."[329]

[Footnote 329: The full complaint is printed by Fleay, _op. cit._, p. 127.]

Clifton at once appealed to his friend, Sir John Fortescue, a member of the Privy Council, at whose order young Thomas was released and sent back to his studies. Apparently this ended the episode. But Clifton, nourishing his animosity, began to investigate the management of Blackfriars, and to collect evidence of similar abuses of the Queen's commission, with the object of making complaint to the Star Chamber. In October, 1601, Evans, it seems, learned of Clifton's purpose, for on the 21st of that month he deeded all his property to his son-in-law, Alexander Hawkins.[330] Clifton finally presented his complaint to the Star Chamber on December 15, 1601,[331] but his complaint was probably not acted on until early in 1602, for during the Christmas holidays the Children were summoned as usual to present their play before the Queen.[332]

[Footnote 330: _Ibid._, pp. 244-45.]

[Footnote 331: Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 84, note 4.]

[Footnote 332: On December 29, 1601, Sir Dudley Carleton wrote to his friend John Chamberlain: "The Queen dined this day privately at My Lord Chamberlain's. I came even now from the Blackfriars, where I saw her at the play with all her _candidae auditrices_." From this it has been generally assumed that Elizabeth visited the playhouse in Blackfriars to see the Children act there; and Mr. Wallace, in his _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, pp. 26, 87, 95-97, lays great emphasis upon it to show that the Queen was directly responsible for establishing and managing the Children at Blackfriars. But the assumption that the Queen attended a performance at the Blackfriars Playhouse is, I think, unwarranted. The Lord Chamberlain at this time was Lord Hunsdon, who lived "in the Blackfriars." No doubt on this Christmas occasion he entertained the Queen with a great dinner, and after the dinner with a play given, not in a playhouse, but in his mansion. (Lord Cobham, who was formerly Lord Chamberlain, and who also lived in Blackfriars, had similarly entertained the Queen with plays "in Blackfriars"; cf. also The Malone Society's _Collections_, II, 52.) Furthermore, the actors on this occasion were probably not the Children of the Chapel, as Mr. Wallace thinks, but Lord Hunsdon's own troupe. Possibly one of Shakespeare's new plays (_Hamlet_?) was then presented before the Queen for the first time.]

Shortly after this, however, the Star Chamber passed on Clifton's complaint. The decree itself is lost, but the following reference to it is made in a subsequent lawsuit: "The said Evans ... was censured by the right honorable Court of Star Chamber for his unorderly carriage and behaviour in taking up of gentlemen's children against their wills and to employ them for players, and for other misdemeanors in the said Decree contained; and further that all assurances made to the said Evans concerning the said house or plays or interludes should be utterly void, and to be delivered up to be canceled."[333] Doubtless the decree fell with equal force upon Giles and the others connected with the enterprise, for after the Star Chamber decree Giles and Robinson disappear from the management of the playhouse. Evans was forbidden to have any connection with plays there; and for a time, no doubt, the building was closed.

[Footnote 333: Fleay, _op. cit._, p. 248.]

Evans, however, still held the lease, and was under the necessity of paying the rent as before. Then came forward Edward Kirkham, who, in his official capacity as Yeoman of the Revels, had become acquainted with the dramatic activities of the Children of the Chapel. He saw an opportunity to take over the Blackfriars venture now that Evans and probably Giles had been forbidden by the Star Chamber to have any connection with plays in that building. Having associated with him William Rastell, a merchant, and Thomas Kendall,[334] a haberdasher, he made overtures to Evans, the owner of the lease. Evans, however, was determined to retain a half-interest in the playhouse, and to evade the order of the Star Chamber by using his son-in-law, Alexander Hawkins, as his agent. Accordingly, on April 20, 1602, "Articles of Agreement" were signed between Evans and Hawkins on the one part, and Kirkham, Rastell, and Kendall on the other part, whereby the latter were admitted to a half-interest in the playhouse and in the troupe of child-actors. Kirkham, Rastell, and Kendall agreed to pay one-half of the annual rent of L40,[335] to pay one-half of the repairs on the building, and in addition to spend L400 on apparel and furnishings for the troupe. Under this reorganization--with Evans as a secret partner--the Children continued to act with their customary success.

[Footnote 334: We find in Henslowe's _Diary_ a player named William Kendall, but we do not know that he was related to Thomas.]

[Footnote 335: The agreements remind one of the organization of the Globe. It seems clear that Kirkham, Rastell, and Kendall held their moiety in joint tenancy.]

About a month later, however, Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, whose house adjoined Blackfriars, seems to have inquired into the affairs of the new organization.[336] What Kirkham told him led him to order Evans off the premises. Evans informs us that he was "commanded by his Lordship to avoid and leave the same; for fear of whose displeasure, the complainant [Evans] was forced to leave the country."[337] He felt it prudent to remain away from London "for a long space and time"; yet he "lost nothing," for "he left the said Alexander Hawkins to deal for him and to take such benefit of the said house as should belong unto him in his absence."[338]

[Footnote 336: Fleay, _op. cit._, pp. 211-13; 216; 220.]

[Footnote 337: _Ibid._, p. 220.]

[Footnote 338: _Ibid._, p. 217.]

If we may judge from the enthusiastic account given by the Duke of Stettin-Pomerania, who visited Blackfriars in the September following, the Children were just as effective under Kirkham's management as they had been under the management of Giles and Evans. It is to be noted, however, that Elizabeth did not again invite the Blackfriars troupe to the Court.

The death of the Queen in 1603 led to the closing of all playhouses. This was followed by a long attack of the plague, so that for many months Blackfriars was closed, and "by reason thereof no such profit and commodity was raised and made of and by the said playhouse as was hoped for."[339] Evans actually "treated" with Richard Burbage "about the surrendering and giving up the said lease," but Burbage declined to consider the matter.

[Footnote 339: Fleay, _op. cit._, p. 235.]

Shortly after this the plague ceased, and acting, stimulated by King James's patronage, was resumed with fervor. The Blackfriars Company was reorganized under Edward Kirkham, Alexander Hawkins (acting for Evans), Thomas Kendall, and Robert Payne: and on February 4, 1604, it secured a royal patent to play under the title "The Children of the Queen's Revels."[340] According to this patent, the poet Samuel Daniel was specially appointed to license their plays: "Provided always that no such plays or shows shall be presented before the said Queen our wife by the said Children, or by them anywhere publicly acted, but by the approbation and allowance of Samuel Daniel, whom her pleasure is to appoint for that purpose." At this time, too, or not long after, John Marston was allowed a share in the organization, and thus was retained as one of its regular playwrights.

[Footnote 340: For the patent, commonly misdated January 30, see The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 267. Mr. Wallace, in _The Century Magazine_ (September, 1910, p. 747), says that the company secured its patent "through the intercessions of the poet Samuel Daniel." It is true that the Children of Her Majesty's Royal Chamber of Bristol secured their patent in 1615 at the intercession of Daniel, but I know of no evidence that he intervened in behalf of the Blackfriars troupe.]

The success of the new company is indicated by the fact that it was summoned to present a play at Court in February, 1604, and again two plays in January, 1605. Evans's activity in the management of the troupe in spite of the order of the Star Chamber is evident from the fact that the payment for the last two court performances was made directly to him.

In the spring of 1604 the company gave serious offense by acting Samuel Daniel's _Philotas_, which was supposed to relate to the unfortunate Earl of Essex; but the blame must have fallen largely on Daniel, who not only wrote the play, but also licensed its performance. He was summoned before the Privy Council to explain, and seems to have fully proved his innocence. Shortly after this he published the play with an apology affixed.[341]

[Footnote 341: A letter from Daniel to the Earl of Devonshire vindicating the play is printed in Grosart's _Daniel_, I, xxii.]