Chapter XIX: Introduction: The Public Theatres (1)

[_Bibliographical Note._--Some notes in the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_ for 1813–16 by Eu. Hood [Joseph Haslewood] are
reprinted in _The Gentleman’s Magazine Library_, xv (1904),
86, and in _Roxburghe Revels_ (ed. J. Maidment, 1837). J. P.
Collier, _History of English Dramatic Poetry_, iii. 79, has
_An Account of the Old Theatres of London_, and chronological
sections on the subject are in F. G. Fleay, _A Chronicle History
of the London Stage_ (1890). T. F. Ordish, _Early London
Theatres_ (1894), covers the Shoreditch and Bankside theatres
‘in the Fields’ other than the Globe; a companion volume on
the urban houses has never appeared. The Bankside houses are
also dealt with by W. Rendle, _The Bankside, Southwark, and the
Globe_ (1877), being Appendix I to F. J. Furnivall, _Harrison’s
Description of England_, Part II (_N. Sh. Soc._), and in _Old
Southwark and its People_ (1878) and _The Play-houses at
Bankside in the Time of Shakespeare_ (_Walford’s Antiquarian_,
1885, vii. 207, 274; viii. 55). J. Q. Adams, _Shakespearean
Play-houses_ (1917), is a comprehensive and valuable work,
which reached me when this chapter was practically complete. I
am glad to find that our results so generally agree. The chief
London maps have been reproduced by the _London Topographical
Society_ and on a smaller scale by G. E. Mitton, _Maps of Old
London_ (1908). Some are also given as illustrations in G. P.
Baker, _The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist_ (1907).
They are classified by W. Martin, _A Study of Early Map-Views
of London_ in _The Antiquary_, xlv (1909), 337, 406, and their
evidence for the Bankside analysed by the same writer, with
partial reproductions, in _The Site of the Globe Play-house of
Shakespeare_ (1910, _Surrey Archaeological Collections_, xxiii.
149).

The evidence of the maps as to the position of the theatres
is obscured, partly by uncertainties as to the dates and
authorships both of the engravings and of the surveys on which
they were based, and partly by the pictorial character of the
topography. They are not strict plans in two dimensions, such
as modern cartographers produce, but either drawings in full
perspective, or bird’s-eye views in diminished perspective.
The imaginary standpoint is always on the south, and the
pictorial aspect is emphasized in the foreground, with the
result that, while the Bankside theatres, but not those north
of the river, are generally indicated, this is rarely with a
precision which renders it possible to locate them in relation
to the thoroughfares amongst which they stand. This is more
particularly the case since, while the general grouping of
buildings, gardens, and trees appears, from a comparison of
one view with another, to be faithfully given, it is probable
that the details are often both conventionally represented and
out of scale. The following classification is mainly borrowed
from Dr. Martin: (_a_) Pre-Reformation representations of
London throwing no light on the theatres; (_b_) _Wyngaerde_, a
pictorial drawing (_c._ 1543–50) by A. Van der Wyngaerde (_L.
T. Soc._ i; Mitton, i); (_c_) _Höfnagel_, a plan with little
perspective by G. Höfnagel, from a survey of _c._ 1554–7 (cf.
A. Marks in _Athenaeum_ for 31 March 1906), published (1572)
with the title _Londinum Feracissimi Angliae Regni Metropolis_
in G. Braun and F. Hohenburg, _Civitates Orbis Terrarum_ (L.
T. Soc. ii; Mitton, iv); (_d_) _Agas_, an engraving with
more perspective, but generally similar to that of Höfnagel
and possibly from the same survey, but drawn after 1561, and
assigned by G. Vertue, who reproduced it (1737), to Ralph Agas
(L. T. Soc. xvii; Mitton, ii); (_e_) _Smith_, a coloured drawing
by William Smith, possibly based on Höfnagel or Agas, in _B. M.
Sloane MS._ 2596, reproduced in H. B. Wheatley and E. W. Ashbee,
_W. Smith_, _The Particular Description of England, 1588_
(1879), and in G. P. Baker, _The Development of Shakespeare
as a Dramatist_ (1907), 18; (_f_) _Bankside Views_, small
representations of the same general character as (_c_), (_d_),
and (_e_), used as backgrounds to pictures and described by W.
Martin in _Antiquary_, xlv. 408; (_g_) _Norden_, engravings
in slight perspective of ‘London’ and ‘Westminster’ by P. Van
den Keere in J. Norden, _Speculum Britanniae_ (1593), from
survey of about the same date (L. T. Soc. vii; Mitton, v, vi;
Furnivall, _Harrison’s Description of England_, Part I, with
notes on p. lxxxix by H. B. Wheatley, reprinted by L. T. Soc.
in _Record_, ii); (_h_) _Delaram Group_, perspective views as
backgrounds to portrait (_c._ 1616) of James I by F. Delaram
(1620), reproduced by W. Martin in _Surrey A. Colls._ xxiii.
186, and other portraits probably based on some original of
_c._ 1603; (_i_) _Hondius Group_, (i) drawing by P. D. Hondius
(1610) in J. Speed, _Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain_
(1611), as inset to map of Britain (_L. T. Record_, ii, with
notes by T. F. Ordish; Baker, _f. p._), (ii) engraving on
title-page of R. Baker, _Chronicle_ (1643), reproduced by Martin
in _Surrey A. Colls._ xxiii. 187, (iii) engraving on title-page
of H. Holland, _Herwologia Anglica_ (1620), (iv) engraving of
triumphal arch at coronation entry of James I by W. Kip in S.
Harrison (cf. ch. xxiv), _The Arches of Triumph_ (1604), all
perhaps based on the same original or survey; (_k_) _Visscher_,
engraving in perspective by Nikolaus Janssen Visscher (1616),
‘Amstelodami, ex officina Judoci Hondii’, with mutilated text
from Camden’s _Britannia_, reproduced from unique copy in Brit.
Mus. (L. T. Soc. iv, with notes by T. F. Ordish in _L. T.
Record_, vi; also W. Martin in _Surrey A. Colls._ xxiii. 188,
and in Ordish, _Shakespeare’s London_, _f. p._ and elsewhere);
(_l_) _Merian Group_, (i) engraving in perspective by M. Merian
in J. L. Gottfried, _Neuwe Archontologia Cosmica_ (1638), 290,
reproduced by Martin, 191, and Adams, 256, and copied in (ii)
_f. p._ to James Howell, _Londinopolis_ (1657), reproduced
by Baker, 154, and (iii) R. Wilkinson, _Londina Illustrata_
(1819); (_m_) _‘Ryther’ Group_, (i) engraving in very slight
perspective from drawing unfinished as regards the Bankside in
Crace Collection, No. 32, without date, imprint, or indication
of authorship, reproduced by W. J. Loftie, _History of London_,
ii. 282, C. L. Kingsford, _Chronicles of London_, (1905) _f.
p._, and Baker, 36, 125, 135, and ascribed to Augustine Ryther
in 1604, but probably of about 1636–45 (cf. _4 N. Q._ ix. 95; _6
N. Q._ xii. 361, 393; _7 N. Q._ iii. 110; vi. 297; vii. 498) in
view of (ii) another version in Crace Coll., No. 31, with the
Bankside complete, bearing the imprint of ‘Cornelis Danckerts
grauer of maps’ in Amsterdam (_c._ 1631–56), and possibly by
Hollar, who worked for Danckerts, and was in England 1636–45,
(iii) map by T. Porter (_c._ 1666), based on (i) with later
additions (reproduced L. T. Soc. v); (_n_) _Hollar_, engraving
in perspective by W. Hollar (in London 1635–43), published
by Cornelius Danckerts in 1647 (L. T. Soc. xix; section by
Martin in _Surrey A. Colls._ xxiii. 194); (_o_) _Faithorne and
Newcourt_, engraving in conventional perspective by William
Faithorne from drawing by Richard Newcourt, published in
1658 (L. T. Soc. xviii; Mitton, vii). Of the various maps of
post-conflagration London the most useful are that of Leeke and
Hollar (_c._ 1666), of which a section is reproduced by Martin
in _Surrey A. Colls._ xxiii. 191, and those of John Ogilby and
W. Morgan (1677, Mitton, viii), John Ogilby and W. Morgan (1682,
L. T. Soc. xv), and John Rocque (1746, L. T. Soc. xxxiv, xxxv,
xxxvii; Mitton, ix; section in Martin, _ut supra_, 197). Rendle,
_Bankside_, has attempted to indicate the sites of the Bankside
theatres upon a reconstructed map based on Rocque, and Martin in
_Surrey A. Colls._ xxiii. 155, 202, gives parts of the Bankside
area as it now stands from the Ordnance Survey map (1896) and a
plan of the Anchor Brewery (1909).]

A. INTRODUCTION

The detailed notices, which will form the greater part of this chapter, may with advantage be prefaced with some general observations upon the historical sequence of the theatres and their distribution at different periods over the London area. The earlier Tudor London knew no theatre, in the sense of a building specially planned and maintained for public dramatic performances, although Yarmouth had its ‘game-house’ by 1538, and a _theatrum_ at Exeter was the scene of satirical farces far back in the fourteenth century. The miracle plays, not in London processional, were given in the open air, and probably on temporary scaffolds. Similar stages may sometimes have been used for the interludes, but these were ordinarily represented in the winter-time, and sought the kindly shelter of a hall.[1019] In the provision of specialized buildings, the drama appears to have been anticipated by the ruder sport of baiting. Höfnagel’s pre-Elizabethan map already shows on the Southwark side of the river the two rings, with open centres and roofed seats for spectators, which are repeated later on by Agas and by Smith. They stand in yards or gardens lined with dog-kennels. One is lettered ‘The Bowll bayting’, the other ‘The beare bayting’. When the first Elizabethan theatres were built in 1576, it was the hall on the one hand, and the ring on the other, which determined the general structure of the two types of auditorium that came simultaneously into being.[1020] The ‘private’ house, roofed and lit, and with its seats arranged in tiers along three sides of a long room, and the ‘public’ house, generally circular, with covered stage and galleries, and a central yard or ‘pit’ open to the day, co-existed for more than half a century, and finally merged in the post-Restoration type of theatre which has come down to our own day. The distinction between ‘private’ and ‘public’ is an unessential one, depending probably upon some difference in the methods of paying for admission necessitated by the regulations of the City or the Privy Council.[1021] The performances in all the houses were public in the ordinary sense. There was, however, another important factor, besides the baiting ring, which greatly affected the structure of the open-air theatre. This was the inn-yard. Long before 1576, interludes had been given in public, as well as in the private halls of the great, and even the need for some kind of permanent, or quasi-permanent, installation had been felt. No doubt there were halls in London which could be hired. The keeper of the Carpenters’ Hall in Shoreditch was prosecuted towards the end of Henry VIII’s reign for procuring a Protestant interlude ‘to be openly played’.[1022] Fees for the letting of Trinity Hall for plays occur among the ‘casuall recepts’ of the churchwardens of St. Botolph without Aldersgate in 1566–7.[1023] A jest-book of 1567 records a play at Northumberland Place.[1024] But an even more convenient hospitality was afforded by the great court-yards of the City inns, where there was sack and bottle-ale to hand, and, as the Puritans averred, chambers ready for deeds of darkness to be done, when the play was over.[1025] In these yards, approached by archways under the inn buildings from one or more streets, and surrounded by galleries with external staircases giving access to the upper floors, an audience could quickly gather, behold at their ease, and escape payment with difficulty. The actors could be accommodated with a tiring-room on the ground floor, and perform as on a natural stage between the pillars supporting the galleries. An upper gallery could be used to vary the scene. The first performances in London inns upon record were at the Saracen’s Head, Islington, and the Boar’s Head, Aldgate, both in 1557.[1026] By the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign the use of them was normal. Plays ‘in hostels and taverns’ were specified for prohibition by the proclamation of April 1559, and the City regulations of 1574 are clearly aimed at the control of the ‘greate innes, havinge chambers and secrete places adjoyninge to their open stagies and gallyries’, and impose obligations for the sake of good order upon innkeepers and tavern-keepers in the forefront of those regarded as likely to harbour plays.[1027] It is not reading too much between the lines to suggest that the owners of particular houses specially laid themselves out to secure the attraction of public entertainments, entered into regular contracts with players, and probably even undertook structural alterations which in fact converted their yards into little less than permanent theatres.[1028] We have, indeed, the record of a trade dispute about the workmanship of play-scaffolds at the Red Lion in Stepney as far back as 1567. The Red Lion stood outside the jurisdiction of the City. Within it, and so far as we can judge, much more important in the history of the stage were the Bell and the Cross Keys, both in Gracechurch Street, the Bull in Bishopsgate Street, and the Bel Savage on Ludgate Hill. No one of these four is in fact mentioned by name as a play-house earlier than 1575, and although they must have been hard hit by the regulations of 1574, it is clear that they did not go altogether out of use, especially during the winter, when climatic conditions rendered the suburbs unattractive, for another twenty years. Stockwood, in 1578, speaks of six or eight ‘ordinarie places’ where plays were then performed.[1029] Nevertheless the action of the City, and the enterprise of James Burbadge, whose descendants claimed for him the honour of being ‘the first builder of playhowses’, led to a shifting of the dramatic focus. The Theatre and the Curtain, both built in or about 1576, stood in ‘the fields’ to the north of London proper, and were perhaps soon followed by Newington Butts on the south side of the river, beyond St. George’s Fields; while the Blackfriars, adapted in the same year (1576) by Richard Farrant to house the performances of children, occupied an old monastic building in the precinct of a ‘liberty’ which, although within the walls, was largely exempt from the jurisdiction of the Corporation. This became the home of the Children of the Chapel, while the Paul’s boys played in their own ‘song-school’, either the church of St. Gregory or some other building in the neighbourhood of St. Paul’s. How long this arrangement had existed, or whether any company of children had played in public at all before the date of Farrant’s experiment, we do not know. From 1576 onwards, it is the Theatre and the Curtain which have to bear the brunt of the Puritan attack, and the luxury of these, as compared with the primitive accommodation of the inn-yards, arouses a special indignation. ‘The sumptuous Theatre houses, a continual monument of Londons prodigalitie and folly’, wails Thomas White in 1577. Stockwood in 1578 discommends ‘the gorgeous playing place erected in the fieldes’; and William Harrison, perhaps about the same time, finds it ‘an evident token of a wicked time when plaiers wexe so riche that they can build such houses’.[1030] Presently the theatres became notable amongst the sights which foreign travellers must see in London. Lupold von Wedel in 1584 says nothing of them, although he records the baiting and its rings.[1031] But they are noticed in the following year by Samuel Kiechel, a merchant of Ulm, who writes:[1032]

‘Comedies are given daily. It is particularly mirthful to
behold, when the Queen’s comedians act, but annoying to a
foreigner who does not know the language, that he understands
nothing. There are some peculiar houses, which are so made as to
have about three galleries over one another, inasmuch as a great
number of people always enters to see such an entertainment. It
may well be that they take as much as from 50 to 60 dollars [£10
to £12] at once, especially when they act anything new, which
has not been given before, and double prices are charged. This
goes on nearly every day in the week; even though performances
are forbidden on Friday and Saturday, it is not observed.’

The Theatre and the London inns were still the chief playing-places, when at some date between 1576 and 1596 William Lambarde illustrated his account of the pilgrimages to Boxley, by explaining that those who visited the shrine did not get off scot-free--

‘no more than such as goe to Parisgardein, the Bell Sauage, or
Theatre, to beholde Beare baiting, Enterludes, or Fence play,
can account of any pleasant spectacle, unlesse they first pay
one pennie at the gate, another at the entrie of the Scaffolde,
and the thirde for a quiet standing.’[1033]

Paris Garden was the generic name given to the successive places for bear-baiting which lay on the Surrey side of the river, not in Southwark proper, which was in the jurisdiction of the City, but in the Liberty of the Clink, which stretched in a westerly direction along the Bankside, or still farther to the west, in the Manor of Paris Garden itself. In Surrey, no less than in London, plays had established themselves at an early date. A performance was going on in Southwark, while the priests of St. Saviour’s sang _Dirige_ for Henry VIII’s soul in 1547.[1034] The Privy Council ordered the Surrey justices to suppress plays in the Borough and the adjoining places during 1578; and it seems probable that a regular play-house had been built south of the river at a date not much later than that of the Theatre itself. It stood far back behind Southwark, in the village of Newington, divided from the river by St. George’s Fields. The distance and the bad roads were against it; and it was not until the Rose was built in the Clink about 1587, that the Bankside became a serious rival to the ‘fields’ in the north as the home of theatres. The Swan, in Paris Garden, was built in 1595. Newington is too far to the south to appear in the maps, but Norden’s map of 1593 shows two round buildings, standing between Bankside and an unnamed road, which may safely be identified with that called Maiden Lane. One is lettered ‘The Beare howse’, the other, more to the east and the south, ‘The play howse’; and this must clearly be the Rose.

In 1596 the City appear to have at last obtained the assent of the Privy Council to the complete exclusion of plays from the area of their jurisdiction. This is probably the proceeding described, with no precise indication of date, in the following passage from Richard Rawlidge’s _A Monster Lately Found out and Discovered, or the Scourging of Tipplers_ (1628):[1035]

‘_London_ hath within the memory of man lost much of hir
pristine lustre, ... by being ... filled with ... sinnes,
which ... are ... maintained, in Play-houses, Ale-houses,
Bawdy-houses, Dising-houses, ... All which houses, and traps
for Gentlemen, and others, of such Receipt, were formerly taken
notice of by many Citizens, and well disposed graue Gentlemen
... wherevpon some of the pious magistrates made humble suit
to the late Queene Elizabeth of ever-liuing memorie, and her
priuy Counsaile, and obteined leaue from her Majesty to thrust
those Players out of the Citty and to pull downe the Dicing
houses: which accordingly was affected, and the Play-houses in
_Gracious street_, _Bishops-gate-street_, nigh _Paules_, that on
_Ludgate_ hill, the _White-Friars_ were put down, and other lewd
houses quite supprest within the Liberties, by the care of those
religious senators, ... and surely had all their successors
followed their worthy stepps, sinne would not at this day haue
beene so powerfull, and raigning as it is.’

The play-houses in Gracious or Gracechurch Street, Bishopsgate Street, and Ludgate Hill were presumably the Bell and the Cross Keys, the Bull, and the Bel Savage. By the house ‘nigh Paul’s’ Rawlidge possibly meant the choir song-school; but in fact there had been no plays by the Paul’s boys since 1590. If there was really a Whitefriars house at so early a date, this is the only notice preserved of it. It may be suspected that Rawlidge confused it with the Blackfriars, which James Burbadge was apparently prevented, upon representations by the City, from reopening in 1596. The claim of the City to exercise any control over the old religious precincts of the Blackfriars and the Whitefriars was a doubtful one; and although they ultimately secured jurisdiction, they were not able to prevent the so-called ‘private’ theatres from establishing themselves in these ‘liberties’.[1036] With these exceptions, however, and possibly that of the Boar’s Head, which seems to have been used for a few years after 1602, but was more likely just outside the bars, 1596 probably saw the last of playing within the actual gates of the City.

Londoners had now to look wholly to the suburbs for their dramatic entertainment. Prince Lewis of Anhalt-Cöthen found four theatres in 1596.[1037] These were doubtless the Theatre and the Curtain on the north and the Rose and the Swan on the south of the river. The Newington house was still used in 1594, but even before that had long been out of fashion. It was probably also about 1596 that John de Witt wrote his _Observations Londinenses_. He too mentioned the four theatres, together with the baiting house, and was particularly struck by the newest, and as he avers, the largest and fairest of them, the Swan, of the interior of which he attached a rough sketch to his manuscript. This manuscript is lost, but fortunately an extract survives, copied into a commonplace book by Arend van Buchell of Utrecht. The following is the complete text:[1038]

EX OBSERVATIONIBUS LONDINENSIBUS JOHANNIS DE WITT.

De phano D. Pauli. Huic Paulino phano adheret locus ab
asservandis sacratioribus vestimentis Sacristi dictus, omnino
observatione dignus, quippe quo DIANAE delubrum fuisse
ferunt. Sacellum est rotundum, hemyphericum, concameratum,
cuius structura Romanam antiquitatem referre videtur. Aiunt
cum fundamenta templi iacerentur effossam ante huius aediculae
fores innumeram cervinorum capitum copiam; inde colligi Dianae
sacrificia (cui cervis litabatur) ibi olim peracta esse eique
hanc aedem sacratam fuisse; in eodem phano sunt epitaphia et
sepulcra varia praeter ea quae alio loco a me notata sunt,
Guilelmi Herberti Penbrochiae comitis Walliae praesidis qui
obijt A^o aetat. lxiii Christi vero 1569.

Ibidem in aede Westmonasteriensi sunt monumenta cum suis
elogiis: Guill. Thynne armigeri ex antiqua Bottevillorum
familia, Joannis Thynne fratris qui obijt 14 Martii 1584, item
Joannis Bourgh Duisburgi gubernatoris A^o 1596.

Amphiteatra Londinij sunt iv visendae pulcritudinis quae a
diversis intersigniis diuersa nomina sortiuntur: in iis varia
quotidie scaena populo exhibetur. Horum duo excellentiora vltra
Tamisim ad meridiam sita sunt, a suspensis signis ROSA et Cygnus
nominata: Alia duo extra vrbem ad septentrionem sunt, viâ quâ
itur per Episcopalem portam vulgariter Biscopgat nuncupatam.
Est etiam quintum, sed dispari [vsu?] et structura, bestiarum
concertationi destinatum, in quo multi vrsi, tauri, et stupendae
magnitudinis canes, discretis caueis & septis aluntur, qui
[_drawing occupies rest of page_] ad pugnam adseruantur,
iocundissimum hominibus spectaculum praebentes. Theatrorum autem
omnium prestantissimum est et amplissimum id cuius intersignium
est cygnus (vulgo te theatre off te cijn [off te swan]),[1039]
quippe quod tres mille homines in sedilibus admittat,
constructum ex coaceruato lapide pyrritide (quorum ingens in
Britannia copia est) ligneis suffultum columnis quae ob illitum
marmoreum colorem, nasutissimos quoque fallere possent. Cuius
quidem formam quod Romani operis vmbram videatur exprimere supra
adpinxi.

Narrabat idem se vidisse in Brittannia apud Abrahamum de
lyndeley [?] mercatorem Alberti Dureri omnia opera cartacea
elegantissima et absolutissima.

The account of Paul Hentzner, who was in London from 31 August to 8 September 1598, lays less stress upon the theatres than upon the baiting, and is not altogether consistent with that of de Witt as to the structure of the Swan, which was the nearest house to the moorings of the royal barge at the west end of Paris Garden.[1040] Hentzner writes:

‘Sunt porro Londini extra Urbem Theatra aliquot, in quibus
Histriones Angli Comoedias & Tragoedias singulis fere diebus, in
magna hominum frequentia agunt, quas variis etiam saltationibus,
suavissima adhibita musica, magno cum populi applausu finire
solent. Non longe ab uno horum theatrorum, quae omnia lignea
sunt, ad Thamesim navis est regia, quae duo egregia habet
conclavia, fenestris perlucidis, picturis & sculpturis eleganter
exornata, in sicco & quidem sub tecto collocata, propterea, ut a
pluviis & coeli injuria immunis sit.’

Hentzner then describes the baiting.[1041] He concludes:

‘Utuntur in hisce spectaculis sicut & alibi, ubicunque locorum
sint Angli, herba Nicotiana, quam Americano idiomate Tabacam
nuncupant (Paetum alii dicunt) hoc modo frequentissime; Fistulae
in hunc finem ex argilia factae, orificio posteriori, dictam
herbam probe exiccatam, ita ut in pulverem facile redigi possit,
immittunt, & igne admoto accendunt, unde fumus ab anteriori
parte ore attrahitur, qui per nares rursum, tanquam per
infurnibulum exit, & phlegma ac capitis defluxiones magna copia
secum educit. Circumferuntur insuper in hisce theatris varii
fructus venales, ut poma, pyra, nuces & pro ratione temporis,
etiam vinum & cerevisia.’[1042]

It is perhaps natural that foreign visitors should be more struck by the English theatres at a time when the English stage was serving as a model to northern Europe, than was the case with a native chronicler of grave and slightly Puritanic tendencies. John Stowe, when he published his _Survey of London_ in 1598, had nothing to say of the Bankside houses, and but little of those in Middlesex. After writing of the miracle plays, he says:

‘Of late time in place of those Stage playes, hath beene vsed
Comedies, Tragedies, Enterludes, and Histories, both true and
fayned: For the acting whereof certaine publike places as the
Theater, the Curtine, &c., haue been erected’ [_in margin_,
‘Theater and Curten for Comedies & other shewes’].[1043]

In another place, at the end of a description of Holywell, he adds:

‘And neare therevnto are builded two publique houses for the
acting and shewe of Comedies, Tragedies, and Histories, for
recreation. Whereof the one is called the Courtein, the other
the Theatre: both standing on the South-west side towards the
field.’[1044]

Even these scanty references were pruned in the second edition of 1603, after the Theatre had disappeared at the end of 1598 and the Chamberlain’s men had left the Curtain. And of the Globe, built during the earlier half of 1599, to which they migrated, Stowe takes no notice. The Globe, however, appears, although unnamed, together with two other theatres, of which one must be the Curtain, in the next foreign account, a very full one by Thomas Platter of Basle, who was in England from 18 September to 20 October 1599.[1045] I translate the passage, of which sufficient use has not been made by historians of the stage:

‘After dinner on the 21st of September, at about two o’clock,
I went with my companions over the water, and in the strewn
roof-house saw the tragedy of the first Emperor Julius with
at least fifteen characters very well acted. At the end of
the comedy they danced according to their custom with extreme
elegance. Two in men’s clothes and two in women’s gave this
performance, in wonderful combination with each other. On
another occasion, I also saw after dinner a comedy, not far from
our inn, in the suburb; if I remember right, in Bishopsgate.
Here they represented various nations, with whom on each
occasion an Englishman fought for his daughter, and overcame
them all except the German, who won the daughter in fight. He
then sat down with him, and gave him and his servant strong
drink, so that they both got drunk, and the servant threw his
shoe at his master’s head and they both fell asleep. Meanwhile
the Englishman went into the tent, robbed the German of his
gains, and thus he outwitted the German also. At the end they
danced very elegantly both in English and in Irish fashion.
And thus every day at two o’clock in the afternoon in the city
of London two and sometimes three comedies are performed,
at separate places, wherewith folk make merry together, and
whichever does best gets the greatest audience. The places are
so built, that they play on a raised platform, and every one
can well see it all. There are, however, separate galleries and
there one stands more comfortably and moreover can sit, but one
pays more for it. Thus anyone who remains on the level standing
pays only one English penny: but if he wants to sit, he is let
in at a further door, and there he gives another penny. If he
desires to sit on a cushion in the most comfortable place of
all, where he not only sees everything well, but can also be
seen, then he gives yet another English penny at another door.
And in the pauses of the comedy food and drink are carried round
amongst the people, and one can thus refresh himself at his own
cost.

‘The comedians are most expensively and elegantly apparelled,
since it is customary in England, when distinguished gentlemen
or knights die, for nearly the finest of their clothes to be
made over and given to their servants, and as it is not proper
for them to wear such clothes but only to imitate them, they
give them to the comedians to purchase for a small sum.

‘What they can thus produce daily by way of mirth in the
comedies, every one knows well, who has happened to see them
acting or playing.’

Platter then describes the Cockpit and the baiting. He concludes:

‘With such and many other pastimes besides the English spend
their time; in the comedies they learn what is going on in other
lands, and this happens without alarm, husband and wife together
in a familiar place, since for the most part the English do not
much use to travel, but are content ever to learn of foreign
matters at home, and ever to take their pastime.’

A year later than Platter, another traveller thus describes a visit to the Bankside:[1046]

‘1600 die Lunae 3 Julii. Audivimus comoediam Anglicam; theatrum
ad morem antiquorum Romanorum constructum ex lignis, ita
formatum ut omnibus ex partibus spectatores commodatissime
singula videre possint. In reditu transivimus pontem magnificis
aedificiis ornatum e quibus uni adhuc affixa cernuntur capita
quorundam comitum et nobilium, qui laesae Majestatis rei
supplicio affecti sunt.’

When Lewis of Anhalt and de Witt wrote, there were four theatres, exclusive of the City inn-yards, which were probably already closed. Platter found two, and sometimes three, performances being given daily. This agrees with the evidence available from other sources. After the scandal of _The Isle of Dogs_ in 1597, the Privy Council decreed a limitation of the London companies to two, the Chamberlain’s men and the Admiral’s. The former played at the Curtain until 1599, when they destroyed the Theatre and built the Globe. The latter played at the Rose until 1600, when they migrated to the newly built Fortune. But it is clear that the ordinance of the Privy Council was not strictly observed. An intruding company was playing in February 1598, either at the Theatre or the Swan. Platter’s three houses in 1599 included the Curtain, together presumably with the Globe and the Rose. When the Council sanctioned the opening of the Fortune in 1600, they understood that the Curtain was to be ‘either ruinated or applied to some other good use’, but it was still the scene of plays in 1601. Finally, in the spring of 1602 Elizabeth ordered the Council to tolerate a third company, that of the Earl of Worcester, Master of the Horse. This was then playing at the Boar’s Head, a short-lived house of which practically nothing is known; in the autumn it moved to the Rose. The Swan possibly went out of use, except for the occasional performances of acrobats and fencers, or of amateurs. On the other hand, Lord Hertford’s men were in London during the winter of 1602–3, in addition to the three privileged companies, and they must have practised somewhere.

To the above must be added, for the closing years of Elizabeth’s reign, the ‘private’ houses; Paul’s reopened in the winter of 1599, the Blackfriars in that of 1600. Of these Platter knows nothing, but Duke Philip Julius of Stettin-Pomerania, in the autumn of 1602, in addition to performances at the Fortune and another theatre, saw also, doubtless at the Blackfriars, the _Kinder-comoedia_. The following is an extract from the diary of the visit kept by the duke’s secretary, Frederic Gerschow:[1047]

‘13 [September] On the thirteenth a comedy was played, of
the taking of Stuhl-Weissenberg, firstly by the Turks, and
thereafter back again by the Christians.

14. In the afternoon was played a tragicomedy of Samson and the
half tribe of Benjamin.’[1048]

On 16 September the duke and his retinue saw the baiting. On 18 September they visited the Blackfriars, and Gerschow wrote an account of the organization of the Children of the Chapel and of the nature of their performances.[1049]

The Globe and the Fortune continued in regular use, as the houses of the King’s men, and the Prince’s men respectively, during the new reign, and endured to the closing of the theatres in 1642. Each was destroyed by fire and rebuilt; the former in 1613, the latter in 1621. Queen Anne’s men at first used the Boar’s Head and the Curtain, but migrated from the Boar’s Head to the Red Bull, which had been built by 1606. This became their principal house, and they cannot be shown to have used the Curtain after 1609. These were the only companies of men players in London during 1603–8, and the Globe, the Fortune, and the Red Bull are obviously the ‘three houses’ whose rivalry is referred to by Dekker in the following passage from his _Raven’s Almanack_ of 1608:[1050]

‘Another ciuill warre doe I finde wil fal betweene players, who
albeit at the beginning of this fatall yeare, they salute one
another like sworne brothers, yet before the middle of it, shall
they wish one anothers throate cut for two pence. The contention
of the two houses, (the gods bee thanked) was appeased long
agoe, but a deadly warre betweene the three houses will I feare
burst out like thunder and lightning. For it is thought that
Flag will be aduanced (as it were in mortall defiance against
Flag), numbers of people will also bee mustred and fall to one
side or other, the drums and trumpets must be sounded, partes
will then (euen by the chiefest players) bee taken: words will
passe to and fro: speeches cannot so bee put vp, handes will
walke, an alarum be giuen, fortune must fauour some, or els they
are neuer able to stand: the whole world must sticke to others,
or else al the water in the theames wil not serue to carrie
those away that will bee put to flight, and a third faction must
fight like wilde Buls against Lyons, or else it will be in vaine
to march vp into the field.’

There were, however, more than three London companies about 1608. M. de la Boderie tells us how one fell into disgrace during that year, and how four others subscribed to buy off the consequent inhibition of plays.[1051] The reconciliation is simple. Dekker has in mind only the ‘public’ and not the ‘private’ houses. Of these Paul’s was closed in 1606; it was made worth its Master’s while not to reopen it. The Blackfriars was used by the successive boy companies, known generically as the Queen’s Revels, until 1608 or 1609, when it passed to the King’s men, who thereafter maintained it as a winter house, to supplement the Globe. The Queen’s Revels then moved to the Whitefriars, a private house built at some time before 1608, and occupied in that year by the ephemeral company of the King’s Revels.

An increase in the number of adult companies now made fresh demands upon theatrical house-room. It is presumably the Duke of York’s men who were described at Leicester in 1608 as ‘the Princes players of the White Chapple, London’. The description suggests that they used the Boar’s Head, but if so, nothing more is heard of it, and it is conceivable that they soon succeeded to the Curtain. The Lady Elizabeth’s, who came into existence in 1611, are traceable at the Swan, which Henslowe may have taken over to succeed the Rose, disused, if not pulled down, by 1606. The following lines are in John Heath’s _Two Centuries of Epigrammes_ (1610), but may of course, especially as the Red Bull is not named, date back to the period when the Curtain was still in the hands of the Queen’s men:

Momus would act the fooles part in a play,
And cause he would be exquisite that way,
Hies me to London, where no day can passe
But that some play-house still his presence has;
Now at the Globe with a judicious eye
Into the Vice’s action doth he prie.
Next to the Fortune, where it is a chaunce
But he marks something worth his cognisance.
Then to the Curtaine, where, as at the rest,
He notes that action downe that likes him best.[1052]

A foreign traveller again gives us help. The relation of the visit of Prince Lewis Frederick of Württemberg in 1610 merely records that he went to the Globe, and Justus Zingerling, who was in London at about the same date, has the briefest note of the existence of ‘theatra comoedorum et in quibus ursi et tauri cum canibus committuntur’.[1053] But the itinerary of Prince Otto of Hesse-Cassel in the following year is more expansive. The compiler writes:

‘In London there are seven theatres, where daily, except on
Sundays, comedies are performed, whereof the most important is
the Globe, which lies over the water. The theatre, where the
children play, is on the hither side of the water; they play
at three o’clock, but only from Michaelmas to Easter. Here it
only costs half a shilling to enter, but for the other places
at least half a crown. These play only with lights, and are the
best company in London.’[1054]

In addition to the Globe and the Whitefriars, the tale of seven theatres is probably made up by the Blackfriars, the Fortune, the Red Bull, the Curtain, and the Swan.

Henslowe’s correspondence with Daborne shows that he still had a ‘publique howse’, probably the Swan, in December 1613, and also that in June of that year his company was only just thinking of ‘comming over’ for a summer season, presumably from the Whitefriars, as he had recently carried out an amalgamation between the Lady Elizabeth’s men and the Queen’s Revels.[1055] In the following year occurred an episode which curiously emphasizes the constant shifting of the focus of theatrical interest during the whole of the period with which we are concerned. Originally stageland was in the heart of the City itself. With the building of the first theatres, it was transferred to the Fields of the northern suburbs. During the last decade of the sixteenth century the Fields in their turn gave way to the Bankside. The Rose, the Swan, and the Globe successively made their appearance, and the vestry of Southwark began to echo the earlier outcry of the City against the iniquities of players, until their mouths were stopped with tithes. But the transpontine period proved a brief one. Hardly was the Globe up, before Alleyn’s choice of a site for the Fortune set the fashion veering again, and opened up a new theatrical region in the western suburbs. This was convenient for the Court and the great houses along the Strand and for the lawyers in the Temple and at Westminster, as well as for the City proper, and its tradition has endured until quite recent years. The Red Bull and the Whitefriars followed in the same area. On the other hand, the Rose had vanished, and the King’s men, although they did not desert the Globe, acknowledged the change of venue by taking up their winter quarters in the Blackfriars hard by. One result was that men who had ridden to the Fields and been ferried to the Bankside, now walked or drove in their coaches to the theatre door. During the spring of 1614 things were probably at their worst. Both the Globe, after its fire, and the Hope were still in the builder’s hands, and if the Lady Elizabeth’s lingered again at the Whitefriars, there can have been no plays across the water at all. The watermen, who twenty years before had exercised the influence of their patron, the Lord Admiral, to induce the Privy Council to revoke an inhibition on the Bankside houses, sent up a bitter cry of protest. John Taylor, the ‘water-poet’, whom they chose as their spokesman, tells the story.[1056] A petition to the King was prepared, to the effect that no play-house might be permitted ‘in London or in Middlesex, within four miles of the City on that side of the Thames’, and with this Taylor pursued James to Theobalds, Newmarket, and Royston. It recited the service done by watermen in the navy during the Armada invasion of 1588 and in such expeditions as those of Essex in 1596 and 1597. And it proceeded:

‘Afterwards the players began to play on the Bankside and to
leave playing in London and Middlesex (for the most part),
then there went such great concourse of people by water that
the small number of watermen remaining at home were not able
to carry them, by reason of the court, the terms, the players,
and other employments, so that we were enforced and encouraged
(hoping that this golden stirring would have lasted ever) to
take and entertain men and boys.’

It was calculated that the number of watermen and their dependants between Windsor and Gravesend had now by 1614 reached 40,000:

‘The cause of the greater half of which multitude hath been
the players playing on the Bankside, for I have known three
companies besides the bear-baiting, at once there; to wit, the
Globe, the Rose, and the Swan. And it is an infallible truth
that, had they never played there, it had been better for
watermen by the one half of their living, for the company is
increased more than half by their means of playing there in
former times.’

Foreign employment had now come to an end:

‘And the players have all (except the King’s men) left their
usuall residency on the Bankside, and do play in Middlesex far
remote from the Thames, so that every day in the week they do
draw unto them three or four thousand people, that were used to
spend their monies by water.’

Such, Taylor assures us, was the effect of the petition. It was referred by James to ‘his commissioners for suits’, that is to say, the Court of Requests, composed of Sir Julius Caesar, Sir Thomas Parry, Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Henry Montagu, Sir Walter Cope, George Calvert, and Baron Sotherton. The King’s men exhibited a counter-petition, and the case came on for hearing.

‘Sir Francis Bacon very worthily said that so far as the public
weal was to be regarded before pastimes, or a serviceable
decaying multitude before a handful of particular men, or
profit before pleasure, so far was our suit to be preferred
before theirs.’

The players appealed to the Earl of Somerset, who became Lord Chamberlain and in that capacity their official protector on 10 July 1614, but he proved well affected towards the watermen. The hearing was adjourned and never resumed, owing to the death of Cope on 31 July, the promotion of Caesar to the Mastership of the Rolls on 1 October, and the consequent dissolution of the commission. Ill feeling broke out between Taylor and his fellows the watermen, who declared that he met the players at supper at the Cardinal’s Hat on Bankside, and took bribes of them to let the suit fall. Taylor, therefore, wrote his pamphlet to vindicate his position.[1057] The completion of the new Globe and the Hope during the progress of the dispute had probably eased matters temporarily for the watermen, but the growing tendency of things theatrical towards Middlesex was not permanently checked. Some of the minor companies used the Hope until 1617, and then left it to the bears again. The Globe survived, but will be found to have occupied during the Caroline period a distinctly secondary position to the Blackfriars in the economy of the King’s men. For this there was another reason besides the geographical superiority of Middlesex over Surrey. The acquisition of the Blackfriars, even though only for winter purposes, in 1608 was an acknowledgement of the advantages for adult companies of the ‘private’ or roofed type of theatre, hitherto used only by boys. Once these advantages were realized, the doom of the old ‘ring’ type, with its central opening, was written. Probably the Hope was the only new house constructed on these lines after 1608, and obviously the Hope required free ventilation to get rid of the stink of bears and dogs. In 1615 Philip Rosseter and others obtained sanction for the conversion of Porter’s Hall in the Blackfriars into a theatre. This was to be used by children as well as adults, and was probably roofed. It was pulled down again by what seems a somewhat arbitrary decision in 1617. About the same time, the roofed Cockpit in Drury Lane was converted into a theatre, under the name of the Phoenix, for the occupation of the Queen’s men, who migrated to it from the Red Bull. Whether or not the Fortune was given a roof at the rebuilding of 1623, or the Red Bull at somewhat the same time, is uncertain; but at any rate the Salisbury Court theatre, built near the Whitefriars in 1629, perhaps to replace the old Whitefriars theatre, was a roofed house.[1058] This was the last new theatre built before the civil wars. The Blackfriars, the Cockpit, and Salisbury Court were the most important of the Caroline stages, and in the post-Restoration houses, although these were on a larger scale than the ‘private’ houses of the past, the roofed model was invariably adopted.

Soon after the completion of Salisbury Court, Edmund Howes, who had already edited the fourth edition of John Stowe’s _Annales_ in 1615, was again revising the text for the fifth edition of 1631, and took occasion to append to his account of the burnings of the Globe and the Fortune the following summary of theatrical enterprise since 1569:[1059]

‘In the yeere one thousand sixe hundred twenty nine, there was
builded a new faire Play-house, neere the white Fryers. And this
is the seauenteenth Stage, or common Play-house, which hath
beene new made within the space of threescore yeeres within
London and the Suburbs, _viz._

‘Fiue Innes, or common Osteryes turned to Play-houses,
one _Cockpit_, S. _Paules_ singing Schoole, one in the
_Black-fryers_, and one in the _White-fryers_, which was built
last of all, in the yeare one thousand sixe hundred twenty
nine, all the rest not named, were erected only for common
Play-houses, besides the new built Beare garden, which was
built as well for playes, and Fencers prizes, as Bull bayting;
besides, one in former time at _Newington_ Buts; Before the
space of threescore yeares aboue-sayd, I neither knew, heard,
nor read, of any such Theaters, set Stages, or Play-houses, as
haue beene purposely built within mans memory.’

This passage serves as a fair summary of the detailed investigations set out in this chapter. Howes only allows one house to the Blackfriars and one to the Whitefriars, and must therefore be leaving out of account the abortive Porter’s Hall house, and treating Salisbury Court as a continuation of the earlier Whitefriars. The Hope and Newington Butts are afterthoughts, and make his seventeen into nineteen. We can identify his five inns as the Bull, the Bell, the Cross Keys, the Bel Savage, and probably the Red Lion, although this just antedates his period of sixty years; while his balance of eight unnamed common play-houses must be the Theatre, the Curtain, the Rose, the Swan, the Globe, the Fortune, the Boar’s Head, and the Red Bull.

Prynne, in his _Histriomastix_ (1633), records six ‘divels chappels’ as then in use, and these are doubtless the six houses, the Blackfriars, Globe, Cockpit, Salisbury Court, Fortune, and Red Bull, which are also noted by the Restoration writers on the stage, John Downes and James Wright, as surviving up to the cataclysm of the civil wars.[1060]

Somewhat more confused and vague in their datings are the reminiscences about 1660 of the Marquis of Newcastle in his letter of advice to Prince Charles, under the head of ‘Devertismentes for your Ma^{tie} People’:[1061]

‘Firste for London Paris Garden will holde good for the meaner
People.

‘Then for severall Playe Houses as ther weare five att leaste In
my Time,--

‘Black-Friers, the Cock-Pitt, Salsburye Courte, the Fortune,
& the Redd Bull,--Ther weare the Boyes thatt played at
Black-Friers, & Paules, & then the Kinges Players played att the
Globe--which is nowe calde the Phenixe [!]--Some Played, att
the Bores heade, & att the Curtin In the feildes & some att the
Hope whiche Is the Beare Garden, and some at White Friers,--Butt
five or Sixe Playe Houses Is enough for all sortes off Peoples
divertion & pleasure In thatt kinde.’

The marquis is the only one of the chroniclers who definitely records the Boar’s Head.

A manuscript continuation of Stowe’s _Annales_, found in a copy of the 1631 edition, narrates the havoc wrought by Puritans and ground-landlords:[1062]

‘Play Houses. The Globe play house on the Banks side in
Southwarke, was burnt downe to the ground, in the yeare 1612.
And now built vp againe in the yeare 1613, at the great charge
of King Iames, and many Noble men and others. And now pulled
downe to the ground, by Sir Matthew Brand, On Munday the 15 of
April 1644, to make tenements in the room of it.

‘The Blacke Friers players play-house in Blacke Friers, London,
which had stood many yeares, was pulled downe to the ground on
Munday the 6 day of August 1655, and tennements built in the
rome.

‘The play house in Salsbury Court, in Fleetstreete, was pulled
downe by a company of souldiers, set on by the sectuaries of
these sad times, on Saturday the 24 day of March 1649.

‘The Phenix in Druery Lane, was pulled downe also this day,
being Saterday the 24 day of March 1649, by the same souldiers.

‘The Fortune Play-house betweene White Crosse streete and
Golding Lane was burnd downe to the ground in the yeare 1618.
And built againe with brick worke on the outside in the yeare
1622. And now pulled downe on the inside by the souldiers this
1649.

‘The Hope, on the Banks side in Southwarke, commonly called
the Beare Garden, a Play House for Stage Playes on Mundayes,
Wedensdayes, Fridayes, and Saterdayes, and for the baiting of
the Beares on Tuesdayes and Thursdayes, the stage being made
to take vp and downe when they please. It was built in the
year 1610, and now pulled downe to make tennementes, by Thomas
Walker, a peticoate maker in Cannon Streete, on Tuesday the 25
day of March 1656. Seuen of M^r. Godfries beares, by the command
of Thomas Pride, then hie Sheriefe of Surry, were then shot to
death, on Saterday the 9 day of February 1655, by a company of
souldiers.’

Downes and Wright do not mention the Hope, as they were not discussing baiting. On the other hand, the annalist says nothing of the fate of the Red Bull, which in fact appears to have escaped destruction, to have been occasionally used for ‘drolls’ during the Commonwealth, and to have served once more, with the Cockpit and Salisbury Court, the demolition of which was probably limited to the interior fittings, for the first entertainments of the Restoration. The building of Vere Street in 1660, Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1661, and Drury Lane in 1663 made them obsolete.[1063]

These records leave ambiguous the fate of the Curtain and the Swan. The Curtain is traceable in occasional use up to about 1627, and is figured as a roundish building in the ‘Ryther’ maps, which are probably of a decade later.[1064] It cannot, therefore, have vanished long before the civil wars, and was the most long-lived of all the theatres. It may, of course, have been rebuilt, later than its original foundation in 1576, but as to this there is no evidence. The ‘Ryther’ maps also show the Fortune. No other maps give any of the theatres on the north of the river. Of the Bankside houses, the Swan is shown by a decagonal ground-plan, with the inscription ‘Old Play house’, in the Paris Garden Manor survey of 1627.[1065] And it is described as still existing side by side with the Globe and the Hope, but clearly also as derelict, in the following passage from _Holland’s Leaguer_ (1632):

‘Especially, and aboue all the rest, she was most taken with the
report of three famous _Amphytheators_, which stood so neere
scituated, that her eye might take view of them from the lowest
_Turret_, one was the _Continent of the World_, because halfe
the yeere a World of _Beauties_, and braue _Spirits_ resorted
vnto it; the other was a building of excellent _Hope_, and
though _wild beasts_ and _Gladiators_ did most possesse it, yet
the Gallants that came to behold those combats, though they were
of a mixt Society, yet were many Noble worthies amongst them;
the last which stood, and as it were shak’d handes with this
Fortresse, beeing in times past as famous as any of the other,
was now fallen to decay, and like a dying _Swanne_, hanging
downe her head, seemed to sing her owne dierge.’[1066]