Chapter XXIV: Introduction: The Public Theatres (6)

Inprimis the saide Gilbert Katherens for him, his executours,
administratours, and assignes, dothe convenaunt, promise, and
graunt to and with the saide Phillipe Henslowe and Jacobe Maide
and either of them, thexecutors, administratours, & assigns of
them and either of them, by theise presentes in manner and forme
following: That he the saied Gilbert Katherens, his executours,
administratours, or assignes shall and will, at his or theire
owne proper costes and charges, vppon or before the last daie of
November next ensuinge the daie of the date of theise presentes
above written, not onlie take downe or pull downe all that same
place or house wherin Beares and Bulls haue been heretofore
vsuallie bayted, and also one other house or staple wherin Bulls
and horsses did vsuallie stande, sett, lyinge, and beinge vppon
or neere the Banksyde in the saide parishe of S^t Saviour in
Sowthworke, comonlie called or knowne by the name of the Beare
garden, but shall also at his or theire owne proper costes and
charges vppon or before the saide laste daie of November newly
erect, builde, and sett vpp one other same place or Plaiehouse
fitt & convenient in all thinges, bothe for players to playe
in, and for the game of Beares and Bulls to be bayted in the
same, and also a fitt and convenient Tyre house and a stage to
be carryed or taken awaie, and to stande vppon tressells good,
substanciall, and sufficient for the carryinge and bearinge of
suche a stage; And shall new builde, erect, and sett vp againe
the saide plaie house or game place neere or vppon the saide
place, where the saide game place did heretofore stande; And to
builde the same of suche large compasse, fforme, widenes, and
height as the Plaie house called the Swan in the libertie of
Parris garden in the saide parishe of S^t Saviour now is; And
shall also builde two stearecasses without and adioyninge to the
saide Playe house in suche convenient places, as shalbe moste
fitt and convenient for the same to stande vppon, and of such
largnes and height as the stearecasses of the saide playehouse
called the Swan nowe are or bee; And shall also builde the
Heavens all over the saide stage, to be borne or carryed without
any postes or supporters to be fixed or sett vppon the saide
stage, and all gutters of leade needfull for the carryage of
all suche raine water as shall fall vppon the same; And shall
also make two Boxes in the lowermost storie fitt and decent for
gentlemen to sitt in; And shall make the particions betwne the
Rommes as they are at the saide Plaie house called the Swan;
And to make turned cullumes vppon and over the stage; And shall
make the principalls and fore fronte of the saide Plaie house of
good and sufficient oken tymber, and no furr tymber to be putt
or vsed in the lower most, or midell stories, except the vpright
postes on the backparte of the saide stories (all the byndinge
joystes to be of oken tymber); The inner principall postes of
the first storie to be twelve footes in height and tenn ynches
square, the inner principall postes in the midell storie to be
eight ynches square, the inner most postes in the vpper storie
to be seaven ynches square; The prick postes in the first storie
to be eight ynches square, in the seconde storie seaven ynches
square, and in the vpper most storie six ynches square; Also
the brest sommers in the lower moste storie to be nyne ynches
depe, and seaven ynches in thicknes, and in the midell storie to
be eight ynches depe and six ynches in thicknes; The byndinge
jostes of the firste storie to be nyne and eight ynches in
depthe and thicknes, and in the midell storie to be viij and
vij ynches in depthe and thicknes. Item to make a good, sure,
and sufficient foundacion of brickes for the saide Play house
or game place, and to make it xiij^{teene} ynches at the leaste
above the grounde. Item to new builde, erect, and sett vpp the
saide Bull house and stable with good and sufficient scantlinge
tymber, plankes, and bordes, and particions of that largnes and
fittnes as shalbe sufficient to kepe and holde six bulls and
three horsses or geldinges, with rackes and mangers to the same,
and also a lofte or storie over the saide house as nowe it is.
And shall also at his & theire owne proper costes and charges
new tyle with Englishe tyles all the vpper rooffe of the saide
Plaie house, game place, and Bull house or stable, and shall
fynde and paie for at his like proper costes and charges for
all the lyme, heare, sande, brickes, tyles, lathes, nayles,
workemanshipe and all other thinges needfull and necessarie for
the full finishinge of the saide Plaie house, Bull house, and
stable; And the saide Plaiehouse or game place to be made in
althinges and in suche forme and fashion, as the saide plaie
house called the Swan (the scantling of the tymbers, tyles,
and foundacion as ys aforesaide without fraude or coven). And
the saide Phillipe Henslow and Jacobe Maide and either of
them for them, thexecutors, administratours, and assignes of
them and either of them, doe covenant and graunt to and with
the saide Gilbert Katherens, his executours, administratours,
and assignes in manner and forme followinge (That is to saie)
That he the saide Gilbert or his assignes shall or maie haue,
and take to his or theire vse and behoofe, not onlie all the
tymber, benches, seates, slates, tyles, brickes, and all other
thinges belonginge to the saide Game place & Bull house or
stable, and also all suche olde tymber whiche the saide Phillipe
Henslow hathe latelie bought, beinge of an old house in Thames
street, London, whereof moste parte is now lyinge in the yarde
or backsyde of the saide Beare-garden; And also to satisfie
and paie vnto the saide Gilbert Katherens, his executors,
administratours, or assignes for the doinge and finishinges of
the workes and buildinges aforesaid the somme of Three Hundered
and three score poundes of good and lawffull monie of England,
in manner and forme followinge (That is to saie) In hande at
thensealinge and delivery hereof, Three score pounds which
the saide Gilbert acknowlegeth him selfe by theise presentes
to haue receaued; And more over to paie every weeke weeklie,
duringe the firste six weekes, vnto the saide Gilbert or his
assignes, when he shall sett workemen to worke vppon or about
the buildinge of the premisses the somme of Tenne poundes of
lawffull monie of Englande to paie them there wages (yf theire
wages dothe amount vnto somuche monie); And when the saide plaie
house, Bull house, and stable are reared, then to make vpp the
saide wages one hundered poundes of lawffull monie of England,
and to be paide to the saide Gilbert or his assignes; And when
the saide Plaie house, Bull house, and stable are Reared,
tyled, walled, then to paie vnto the saide Gilbert Katherens
or his assignes one other hundered poundes of lawffull monie
of England; And when the saide Plaie house, Bull house, and
stable are fullie finished, builded, and done in manner and
forme aforesaide, then to paie vnto the saide Gilbert Katherens
or his assignes one other hundred Poundes of lawffull monie of
England in full satisfacion and payment of the saide somme of
CCClx^{li}. And to all and singuler the covenantes, grauntes,
articles, and agreementes above in theise presentes contayned,
whiche on the parte and behalfe of the saide Gilbert Katherens,
his executours, administratours, or assignes are ought to be
observed, performed, fulfilled, and done, the saide Gilbert
Katherens byndeth himselfe, his executours, administratours, and
assignes vnto the saide Phillipe Henslowe and Jacob Maide and to
either of them, thexecutours, administratours, and assignes of
them or either of them, by theise presentes. In witnes whereof
the saide Gilbert Katherens hath herevnto sett his hande and
seale, the daie and yere firste above written

The mark G K of Gilbert Katherens

Sealed and Delivered in the presence of
witnes Moyses Bowler
Edwarde Griffin

The execution of the contract must have been delayed, for the rebuilt Bear Garden is fairly to be identified with the Hope, of which no mention is made in the petition of the spring of 1614 described by Taylor in _The True Cause of the Watermen’s Suit_, although it had certainly come into use by the following autumn.[1434] Here was arranged for 7 October a trial of wit between this same Taylor and the shifty rhymer William Fennor.[1435] The latter failed to turn up, and Taylor, who, according to his own account, had advertised ‘this Bear Garden banquet of dainty conceits’ and collected a great audience, was left ‘in a greater puzzell then the blinde beare in the midst of all her whip-broth’. After acting part of what he had intended, he resigned the stage to the regular company:

Then came the players, and they play’d an act,
Which greatly from my action did detract,
For ’tis not possible for any one
To play against a company alone,
And such a company (I’ll boldly say)
That better (nor the like) e’r played a play.

This company was no doubt the Lady Elizabeth’s, as reconstituted in the previous March under an agreement with Nathaniel Field on their behalf, of which a mutilated copy exists. To it Meade was a party, and there is nothing to establish a connexion between Meade and any other theatre than the Hope.[1436] Jonson names the Lady Elizabeth’s men as the actors of _Bartholomew Fair_, and in the Induction thereto, after a dialogue between the Stage-keeper, who is taunted with ‘gathering up the broken apples for the beares within’, and the Book-holder, a Scrivener reads ‘Articles of Agreement, indented, between the Spectators or Hearers, at the Hope on the Bankeside, in the County of Surrey on the one party; and the Author of Bartholmew Fayre in the said place, and County on the other party: the one and thirtieth day of Octob. 1614’. According to Jonson the locality was suitable for a play on Bartholomew Fair, for it was ‘as durty as _Smithfield_, and as stinking euery whit’.[1437] There were disputes between Henslowe and the company, partly arising out of an arrangement that they should ‘lie still’ one day a fortnight for the baiting, and the combination broke up. Some of its members, apparently then Prince Charles’s men, are found after Henslowe’s death signing an agreement with Alleyn and Meade to play at the Hope, and to set aside a fourth of the gallery takings towards a sum of £200 to be accepted in discharge of their debt to Henslowe. Alleyn had of course resumed his part proprietorship of the house as executor and ultimate heir to Henslowe. Meade probably took actual charge of the theatre, and there is an undated letter from Prince Charles’s men to Alleyn, written possibly in 1617, in which they explain their removal from the Bankside as due to the intemperate action of his partner in taking from them the day which by course was theirs. I suppose that this dispute also was due to the competition of baiting with the plays. In 1619 some disputes between Alleyn and Meade had to be settled by arbitration, and from Alleyn’s memoranda in connexion with these it appears that Meade was his deputy under his patent as Master of the Game, and had also a lease from him of the house at £100 a year.[1438] The Hope is mentioned from time to time, chiefly as a place of baiting, up to the civil wars.[1439] It is one of the three Bankside theatres alluded to in _Holland’s Leaguer_ (1632), where it is described as ‘a building of excellent hope’ for players, wild beasts, and gladiators. Bear-baiting was suppressed by the House of Commons in 1642,[1440] and the house was dismantled in 1656. The manuscript continuation of Stowe’s _Annales_ describes its end and the slaughter of the bears, but gives the date of its erection erroneously as 1610 instead of 1613.[1441]

After the Restoration the Bear Garden was restored, and a lane called Bear Gardens, running from Bankside to New Park Street, and a sign therein of The White Bear still mark its name.[1442] Its site is pretty well defined in the seventeenth-century maps as to the west of the Globe and, where that is shown, the Rose, and generally as a little nearer Maid Lane than the latter. This is consistent with a notice in the Sewers records for 5 December 1595 of a sewer which ran to the Bear Garden from a garden known to have lain a little farther east along Maid Lane than the Globe.[1443]

The traditional day for baiting was Sunday. Crowley in 1550 describes it as taking place on ‘euerye Sondaye’.[1444] Naturally this did not pass without Puritan comment, to which point was given by the fall of Paris Garden on a Sunday in 1583.[1445] A general prohibition of shows on Sunday seems to have followed, from which it is not likely that bear-baiting was excepted. It may be inferred that Thursday was substituted, for a Privy Council order of 25 July 1591 called attention, not only to a neglect of the rule as to Sunday, but also to the fact that every day ‘the players do use to recite their plays to the great hurt and destruction of the game of bear-baiting and like pastimes, which are maintained for Her Majesty’s pleasure if occasion require’, and forbade plays both on Sunday and on Thursday, on which day ‘those other games usually have been always accustomed and practised’.[1446] Henslowe’s diary seems to show that up to 1597 he kept the Sunday prohibition and disregarded the Thursday one, which is a little odd, as he was interested in the Bear Garden. But a proclamation of 7 May 1603 on the accession of James repeats the warning that there was neglect of the Sabbath, and renews the prohibition both for baiting and for plays.[1447] Henslowe and Alleyn in their petition of about 1607 for increased fees lay stress on this restraint as a main factor in their alleged loss.[1448] It seems from the notes of Stowe’s manuscript _continuator_ that during the first half of the seventeenth century Tuesday and Thursday became the regular baiting days.[1449] But the agreements made by Henslowe and Meade with the Lady Elizabeth’s men in 1614 profess only to reserve one day in fourteen for this purpose, of which apparently notice was to be given on the previous Monday.[1450]

xvi. PORTER’S HALL

Authority was given for the erection of a new theatre by the following patent of 3 June 1615:[1451]

[Sidenote: De concessione regard Phillippo Rosseter et aliis.]

Iames by the grace of God &c. To all Maiors, Sheriffes,
Iustices of peace, Bayliffes, Constables, headboroughes, and
to all other our Officers, Ministers, and loving Subiectes,
to whome these presentes shall come, greeting. Whereas wee by
our letteres Patentes sealed with our great seale of England
bearing date the ffourth day of Ianuary in the seaventh yeare
of our Raigne of England Fraunce and Ireland and of Scotland
the three and ffortieth for the consideracions in the same
letteres patentes expressed did appoint and authorise Phillipp
Rosseter and certaine others from tyme to tyme to provide,
keepe, and bring vppe a convenient nomber of children, and them
to practise and exercise in the quallitie of playing by the
name of the children of the Revelles to the Queene, within the
white ffryers in the Suburbs of our Cittie of London, or in any
other convenient place where they the said Phillipp Rosseter
and the rest of his partners should thinke fitting for that
purpose, As in and by the said letteres patentes more at large
appeareth, And whereas the said Phillipp Rosseter and the rest
of his said partners have ever since trayned vppe and practised
a convenient nomber of children of the Revelles for the purpose
aforesaid in a Messuage or mansion house being parcell of
the late dissolved Monastery called the white ffryers neere
Fleetestreete in London, which the said Phillipp Rosseter did
lately hold for terme of certaine yeres expired, And whereas the
said Phillipp Rosseter, together with Phillipp Kingman, Robert
Iones, and Raphe Reeve, to continue the said service for the
keeping and bringing vppe of the children for the solace and
pleasure of our said most deere wife, and the better to practise
and exercise them in the quallitie of playing by the name of
children of the Revelles to the Queene, have latelie taken in
lease and farme divers buildinges, Cellers, sollars, chambers,
and yardes for the building of a Play-house therevpon for the
better practising and exercise of the said children of the
Revelles, All which premisses are scituate and being within the
Precinct of the Blacke ffryers neere Puddlewharfe in the Suburbs
of London, called by the name of the lady Saunders house, or
otherwise Porters hall, and now in the occupation of the said
Robert Iones. Nowe knowe yee that wee of our especiall grace,
certaine knowledge, and meere mocion have given and graunted,
And by theise presentes for vs, our heires, and successors,
doe give and graunte lycense and authoritie vnto the said
Phillipp Rosseter, Phillipp Kingman, Robert Iones, and Raphe
Reeve, at their proper costes and charges to erect, build, and
sett vppe in and vppon the said premisses before mencioned one
convenient Play-house for the said children of the Revelles,
the same Play-house to be vsed by the Children of the Revelles
for the tyme being of the Queenes Maiestie, and for the Princes
Players, and for the ladie Elizabeths Players, soe tollerated or
lawfully lycensed to play exercise and practise them therein,
Any lawe, Statute, Act of Parliament, restraint, or other matter
or thing whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding. Willing and
commaunding you and every of you our said Maiors, Sheriffes,
Iustices of peace, Bayliffes, Constables, headboroughes and
all other our officers and ministers for the tyme being, as
yee tender our pleasure, to permitt and suffer them therein,
without any your lettes, hinderance, molestacion, or disturbance
whatsoever. In witnes whereof, &c. Witnes our selfe at
Westminster the third day of Iune.
per breve de priuato sigillo &c.

The statements made in the patent as to the objects of the promoters can be confirmed from other sources. We know that the lease of the Whitefriars expired at the end of 1614, that there had been an amalgamation of the Queen’s Revels and the Lady Elizabeth’s men in 1613, and that in all probability this arrangement was extended to bring in Prince Charles’s men during 1615. Unfortunately for Rosseter and his associates, the patent had hardly been granted before it was called in question. Presumably the inhabitants of the Blackfriars, who had already one theatre in their midst, thought that that one was enough. At any rate the Corporation approached the Privy Council, and alleged divers inconveniences, in particular the fact that the theatre, which was described as ‘in Puddle Wharfe’, would ‘adjoine so neere vnto’ the church of St. Anne’s as to disturb the congregation.[1452] The Council referred the patent to the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Edward Coke, no friend of players, or of the royal prerogative which expressed itself in patents; and when he found a technical flaw, in that the Blackfriars, having been brought within the City jurisdiction by the charter of 1608, was not strictly within ‘the suburbs’, ordered on 26 September 1615 that the building, which had already been begun, should be discontinued. Nevertheless, the work must have gone so far as to permit of the production of plays, for the title-page of Field’s _Amends for Ladies_ (1618) testifies that it was acted ‘at the Blacke-Fryers both by the Princes Servants and the Lady Elizabeths’. Moreover, on 27 January 1617 the Privy Council wrote again to the Lord Mayor, enjoining him to see to the suppression of a play-house in the Blackfriars ‘neere vnto his Majestyes Wardrobe’, which is said to be ‘allmost if not fully finished’.[1453]

It does not appear possible to say exactly where in the Blackfriars’ precinct the Porter’s Hall once occupied by Lady Saunders stood. It was certainly not the porter’s lodge at the north-west corner of the great cloister, for this was still in 1615, as it had been since 1554, part of the Cobham house. One Ninian Sawnders, a vintner, took a lease of the chancel of the old conventual church from Sir Thomas Cawarden in 1553, and this would have been close to St. Anne’s, which stood at the north-east corner of the great cloister. But Ninian died in 1553 and never got knighted. On the other hand, the rooms on the south side of the great cloister, generally described as Lygon’s lodgings, had been in the tenure of one Nicholas Saunders shortly before their sale by Sir George More to John Freeman and others in 1609. Nicholas Saunders is said to have been knighted in 1603.[1454] These lodgings adjoined More’s own mansion house, and might at some time have served as a lodge for his porter.[1455] But I do not feel that they would very naturally be described either as ‘near’ or ‘in’ Puddle Wharf, or as ‘near’ the Wardrobe. These indications suggest some building approached either from Puddle Wharf proper or from the hill, afterwards known as St. Andrew’s Hill, which ran up from it to the Wardrobe, outside the eastern wall of the Priory precinct. The Cawarden estate did not extend to this wall, and the Saunders family may quite well, in addition to Lygon’s lodgings, have had a house, either on the site of the old convent gardens, or higher up the hill on the Blackwell estate, near where Shakespeare’s house stood, and near also to St. Anne’s. Perhaps there had been a porter’s lodge on the east of the old prior’s house.

XVII

THE PRIVATE THEATRES

i. THE BLACKFRIARS

[_Bibliographical Note._--Many documents bearing upon the
history of the theatre are preserved at Loseley, and the most
important are collected by Professor A. Feuillerat in vol. ii
of the _Malone Society’s Collections_ (1913). A few had been
already printed or described by A. J. Kempe in _The Loseley
Manuscripts_ (1835), by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps in _Outlines_,
i. 299, by J. C. Jeaffreson in the 7th _Report of the Hist.
MSS. Commission_ (1879), by Professor Feuillerat himself in
_Shakespeare-Jahrbuch_, xlviii (1912), 81, and by C. W. Wallace,
with extracts from others, in _The Evolution of the English
Drama up to Shakespeare_ (1912, cited as Wallace, i). In the
same book and in _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_
(1908, cited as Wallace, ii), Professor Wallace prints or
extracts documents from other sources, chiefly lawsuits in
the Court of Requests and elsewhere, which supplement those
discovered by J. Greenstreet and printed in F. G. Fleay,
_Chronicle History of the London Stage_ (1890). The references
to the theatre in J. P. Collier, _History of English Dramatic
Poetry_ (1837 and 1879), are seriously contaminated by
forgeries. Some material for the general history of the precinct
is furnished in the various editions of John Stowe, _Survey of
London_ (1598, 1603, ed. Munday, 1618, ed. Strype, 1720, ed.
Kingsford, 1908), in W. Dugdale, _Monasticon_ (1817–30), by M.
Reddan in the _Victoria History of London_, i. 498, and in the
_Athenaeum_ (1886), ii. 91. A. W. Clapham, _On the Topography
of the Dominican Priory of London_ (_Archaeologia_, lxiii.
57), gives a valuable account of the history and church of
the convent, but had not the advantage of knowing the Loseley
documents, and completely distorts the plan of the domestic
buildings and the theatre. An account by J. Q. Adams is in _S.
P._ xiv (1917), 64. The status of the liberty is discussed by
V. C. Gildersleeve, _Government Regulation of the Elizabethan
Drama_, 143.]

The Dominicans, also called the ‘preaching’ or ‘black’ friars, came to England in 1221. Their first house was in Holborn.[1456] In 1275 they acquired a site on the sloping ground between St. Paul’s and the river, just to the east of Fleet ditch, and obtained leave to divert the walls of the City so as to furnish a north and north-west boundary to their precinct. Here grew up a very famous convent, the motherhouse of all the Dominican settlements in the country. It received favours from several sovereigns, notably from Edward I and his Queen Eleanor, who were regarded as its founders; and in return held its great buildings available for national purposes. In 1322–3 it furnished a depository for state records. It housed divers parliaments, at first in its church and later in a great chamber which will be of singular interest to us, and from as early as 1311 was often found a convenient meeting-place for the Privy Council. In 1522 it was the lodging of the Emperor Charles V, and a wooden bridge and gallery were carried over the Fleet, to facilitate communications with his train in Bridewell palace. In 1529 its parliament chamber was the scene of the legatine sittings which tried the case of divorce between the same Emperor’s niece Katharine and the conscience-stricken Henry VIII.[1457]

By this time the friars had ceased to be a power in the land. Those of the convent had numbered seventy in 1315; there were no more than sixteen or seventeen in 1538.[1458] Parts of the buildings, now all too spacious, were let out as residences. It was, perhaps, the neighbourhood of the Wardrobe, whose Master had an official residence contiguous to the east wall of the precinct, which made the Blackfriars a favourite locality for those about the Court. A list of ‘them that hath lodgings within the Blak Freers’, which was drawn up in 1522, probably in connexion with the imperial visit, contains the names of Lord Zouch of Harringworth, Lord Cobham, Sir William Kingston, then carver and afterwards comptroller of the household, Sir Henry Wyatt, afterwards treasurer of the chamber, Sir William Parr, Sir Thomas Cheyne, afterwards warden of the Cinque ports and treasurer of the household, Jane, widow of Sir Richard Guildford, formerly master of the horse, and Christopher More, a clerk of the exchequer.[1459] It is to be feared that some of these tenants cast a covetous eye upon the fee-simple of their dwellings, and that it was not all zeal for church reform which made Lord Cobham, for example, write to Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet and son of Sir Henry, on 7 October 1538, ‘No news, but I trust there shall not be a friar left in England before you return’.[1460] Cobham and his friends had not long to wait. The deed by which the friars surrendered their property into the hands of the King is dated 12 November 1538. The annual income, derived from the rented premises, was reckoned as £104 15_s._ 5_d._, but of course this in no way represents the capital value of the site and buildings.[1461] The partition of spoils, under the supervision of the Court of Augmentations, followed in due course. Cobham got his house, although not immediately, at nine years’ purchase; and between 1540 and 1550 some sixteen other parcels of the estate, many of them very substantial, were similarly alienated.[1462] Finally, on 12 March 1550, during the liberal distribution of crown lands for which the authority of Henry VIII was alleged by his executors in the Privy Council, a comprehensive grant was made of all that still remained unalienated in the precinct to Sir Thomas Cawarden, the Master of the Revels, whose office had for some years past been established within its walls. Apparently Cawarden paid nothing for it, but on the other hand the King owed him a good deal for moneys spent in the service of the Revels.[1463]

The Blackfriars long remained an anomaly in the local government of London. Like all monastic establishments, the friars had maintained extensive privileges within their own precinct. Nightly their porter had shut their four gates upon the city. They had done their own paving. The Lord Mayor had claimed a jurisdiction, but if this was admitted, it was only in cases of felony. The ordinary functions of civil magistracy had been exercised, when called for, by Sir William Kingston and other important tenants.[1464] Naturally there had been friction from time to time with the Corporation, and on the surrender the latter, like the tenants, hoped that their opportunity was come. They addressed a petition to Henry, in which they expressed their gratification that he had ‘extirped and extinct the orders of Freers to the great exaltacion of Crystes doctryne and the abolucion of Antecriste theyr first founder and begynner’, and asked for a grant of the church and the whole precinct of the Blackfriars, together with those of the three other London friaries, to be used for the special benefit of non-parishioners and of those infected by pestilence.[1465] Henry, however, had not gone to the trouble of obtaining a surrender merely to inflate the powers and the revenues of a municipality. He is reported to have replied that ‘he was as well hable to keep the liberties as the Friers were’, and to have handed the keys to Sir John Portinari, one of his gentlemen pensioners, who dwelt in the precinct.[1466] The Blackfriars, therefore, continued to be an exempt place or ‘liberty’, an enclave within the walls of the City, but not part of it, and with a somewhat loose and ill-defined organization of its own. The inhabitants agreed together and appointed a porter and a scavenger. A constable was appointed for them by the justices of the verge.[1467] The precinct was constituted an ecclesiastical parish, known as St. Anne’s after a chapel which had once served its inhabitants; and was provided with a church.[1468] Petty offences were tried, and any exceptional affairs managed, as might have been done in a rural parish, by the justices, and it was to these that any administrative orders thought necessary by the Privy Council were ordinarily addressed.[1469] It perhaps goes without saying that the City were not content with a single rebuff. They attempted to interfere at the time of a riot in 1551, and were snubbed by the Privy Council.[1470] Under Mary they promoted legislation with a view to annexing the liberties, but without success.[1471] In 1562 a sheriff, who entered the liberty to enforce a proclamation, was shut in by the prompt action of the constable, and faced with an inhibition which one of the justices hurried to obtain from a privy councillor.[1472] The city remained persistent. In 1574 the Council had again to intervene.[1473] In 1578 a controversy arose as to the right of the City to dispose of the goods of felons and other escheats. It was referred to two chief justices, who made a report to the effect that, while the inhabitants of both the Blackfriars and the Whitefriars enjoyed certain immunities from civic levies and liabilities, nevertheless the soil of the precincts lay within the City, and the City was entitled to exercise jurisdiction therein. It may be doubted whether effect was given to this opinion.[1474]

In 1587 the Council ordered another inquiry, in order to ascertain the precise nature of the Queen’s title in the Blackfriars.[1475] There had been a petition for redress of inconveniences from the inhabitants.[1476] About the same time the chief landowner, Sir William More, appears to have suggested that the liberty should be converted into a manor, and manorial rights conferred upon him.[1477] These are signs that residence in a liberty hard by a thronging population had disclosed a seamy side. Undesirable persons were bound to throng to a district where the Lord Mayor’s writ did not run. An open space, for example, filled with immemorial trees planted by the friars, had been ruined to house alleys for bowling and other unlawful games.[1478] Doubtless there were those who resented the fact that the attempt of the City to discourage interludes had been met by the establishment of a Blackfriars theatre in 1576, which lasted until 1584. It appears to have been a protest from the inhabitants which led the Privy Council to forbid the public theatre contemplated by James Burbage in 1596, although some years later they winked at the opening of the building as a private house. In 1596 the church fell down, and in appointing a commission to apportion the responsibility for repairs, the council also instructed them to consider the government of the liberty, ‘which being grown more populus than heretofore and without any certaine and knowen officer to keepe good orders there, needeth to be reformed in that behalfe’.[1479] The nature of the commission’s findings is not upon record, but that the ultimate solution lay in the incorporation of the liberty in the City could hardly be doubtful. As far back as 1589 the Council had found it convenient to use the Lord Mayor as an agent for securing a proper contribution from the Blackfriars towards a levy. From 1597 onwards they showed an increased tendency to make similar use of an administrative machinery far more completely organized than that of the justices of the peace. In that year the Lord Mayor was instructed to make a collection in aid of the Blackfriars church repairs. In 1600 it again fell to him to assess the share of the liberty in a levy of men and money. In 1601 it is he who is called upon to suppress plays in Blackfriars during Lent.[1480] The final step was, however, deferred until 20 September 1608, when the new Jacobean charter formally extended the jurisdiction of the city to various liberties, including both the Blackfriars and the Whitefriars, with certain exemptions as regards assessments and the tenure of offices, but with none as regards responsibility for petty offences and the keeping of the peace.[1481]

I have anticipated, in order to get the question of jurisdiction out of the way. I must now return to the topography. Sir Thomas Cawarden died on 29 August 1559. He had no son, and his executors, Lady Cawarden and Sir William More, personally took over the Blackfriars estate in survivorship, as part of the settlement of his affairs.[1482] Lady Cawarden’s death on 20 February 1560 left More sole owner. He retained the property until his own death in 1601, and the muniment room of his house at Loseley near Guildford contains innumerable documents relating to the business transactions in which it involved him, together with some of earlier date which he inherited from Cawarden. The researches of Professor Feuillerat in these archives render it possible to reconstruct with some minuteness the arrangement of the Blackfriars and its buildings at the time of the surrender, to trace many of the changes of the next half-century, and, as part of the process, to indicate pretty definitely the locality and nature of the structures which were turned to theatrical uses.

The precinct covered a space of about five acres.[1483] In shape it was a rough parallelogram, wider at the north than at the south. The great gate was towards the east end of the north boundary. It was reached by a short entry on the south of Bowier Row, now Ludgate Hill, just east of Ludgate. This seems to have been called Gate Street. It is now the north end of Pilgrim Street.[1484] From here the boundary was the city wall, westwards for about 450 ft. to the Fleet ditch, and then southwards for about 800 ft. along the east side of the ditch. There were towers at intervals. One of these stood about 200 ft. down from the angle, and immediately south of this was the bridge over the Fleet towards Bridewell. The south and east boundaries were also walled. Between the south wall and the river ran Castle Lane, which was not within the precinct.[1485] A gate in the south wall gave access across the lane to the Blackfriars ‘bridge’ or ‘stairs’, a common landing place, originally built by the Prior of St. John’s, from whom, in some way not clear to me, the Friars held their estate.[1486] The south-east angle of the precinct was near Puddle Wharf, and from here the boundary ran up the west side of St. Andrew’s Hill to Carter Lane, bending out eastwards near the top, where the buildings of the Wardrobe joined it by an arch over the roadway, was then driven in sharply westwards by the end of Carter Lane, which was butt up against a turngate in the friars’ wall, and finally ran in an irregularly diagonal line from the junction of Creed and Carter Lanes north-west to the great gate again. Internally the precinct was unequally divided by an irregular highway which ran north and south, from the great gate to the Blackfriars stairs. This started out of Gate Street as High Street, and lower down became Water Lane.[1487] All the conventual buildings lay on the east of the highway. Here was the larger division of the precinct, measuring about 450 ft. from east to west. The western division, measuring about 150 ft., contained only a few houses and gardens. Across it ran from Bridewell Bridge to Water Lane a strip of unoccupied land, containing nothing but a ruined gallery, probably part of the provision made for the accommodation of Charles V in 1522. One of Cawarden’s first acts, when he got his property, was to make a new road, with tenements and gardens to the south of it, along this strip. It became known as Bridewell Lane, and is represented by the present Union Street.[1488] It must have joined Water Lane just south of a little place or _parvis_ which lay in front of the west porch of the church and the adjoining entrance to the cloister. The _parvis_ contained one or two houses and shops, and formed part of the continuous thoroughfare from north to south, communicating by gateways with High Street and Water Lane.[1489] The conventual church itself divided the eastern portion of the precinct from west to east, extending not quite so far east as the present Friar Street. It was 220 ft. long and 66 ft. wide, and had two aisles and a chancel, which, as usual in conventual churches, was as long as the nave. There was a square porch tower over the west end. Over the junction of nave and chancel stood a belfry, visible in Wyngaerde’s drawing of _c._ 1543–50, and to the north of the chancel a chapel, probably the quasi-parochial chapel of St. Anne, and a vestry.[1490] Beyond these was the churchyard.[1491] This was 300 ft. long by 90 ft. deep, and occupied about two-thirds of the space between the High Street on the west, the church on the south, and the north-eastern boundary of the precinct. A group of houses stood between it and the great gate towards Ludgate, and three others separated it from the High Street at the south west corner.[1492] One of these, built up against the church and the High Street gateway, was a recluse’s cell or Ankerhouse.[1493] Cawarden cut a new road across the churchyard, 20 ft. north of the site of the chancel and just north of the Ankerhouse and the High Street gate. This continued Carter Lane, the turngate at the end of which was converted into a gate practicable for carts, and with Bridewell Lane provided a thoroughfare across the Blackfriars from east to west in addition to that from north to south. That part of the existing Carter Lane, west of Creed Lane, which was formerly known as Shoemakers’ Row, doubtless represents Cawarden’s new way.[1494]

On the south of the nave stood the great cloister, entered by a porter’s lodge in its north-west corner. It was 110 ft. square. Its eastern alley was probably in a line with a way across the church under the belfry to a door into the churchyard, and this line, preserved by Cawarden in order to provide access to the cloister from his new way, is represented by the existing Church Entry.[1495] The north side of the cloister was formed by the wall of the nave. Behind the other three sides were ranged the domestic buildings of the convent. On the east were the ample Prior’s lodging, which stretched back over the space south of the chancel, and farther to the south the Convent garden, covering an acre. Over part of this lodging and over the cloister alley itself was the east dorter of the friars, communicating direct with the church by a stairway.[1496] The east side of the cloister also contained the Chapter-house, which probably stood in the middle, and to the south of this a school-house.[1497] Behind the south-east corner were the provincial’s lodging, a store-house, the common jakes, and another garden, known as the hill garden.[1498] Another dorter stood over the south cloister alley and over some ground-floor buildings of uncertain use, which divided this alley from an inner cloister, flanked on the east by the library, and in part on the west by the infirmary, behind which were the bakehouse, brewhouse, and stables. The western end of the south alley of the main cloister formed a lavabo, and was apparently sunk to a lower level than the rest.[1499] Down the western side of both cloisters extended a continuous range of buildings, the details of which will require subsequent examination. These formed two main blocks. The northern, flanking the main cloister, contained the buttery and parts of the guest-house and porter’s lodge; the southern, flanking the inner cloister, was devoted to the refectory, the lower end of which, owing to the slope of the hill, seems to have stood over the infirmary. The irregular outline of Water Lane, jutting a good deal to the west after it emerged from the _parvis_ in front of the church porch, left a space of some 84 ft. at its widest between this range of buildings and the lane itself. The guest-house and porter’s lodge extended back into this space; it also held the convent kitchen and other subsidiary buildings.[1500]

When Cawarden got his grant in 1550, a great deal of the property had already been disposed of.[1501] Except for the strip where he laid out Bridewell Lane and two small garden plots, nothing was left for him in the western division of the precinct. To the north the group of houses between the churchyard and the great gate had gone. To the south, Cobham had taken the rooms over the porter’s lodge, with a closet window looking into the church, and he and one Sir George Harper had divided the rest of the guest-house block--‘fayer great edifices’, says Cawarden--that lay behind.[1502] Sir Francis Bryan had taken the Prior’s lodging and the convent garden, and from him they had passed to the Bishop of Ely and then to one William Blackwell. Lady Kingston had taken the inner cloister, with part of the south dorter and the rooms beneath it, the library, the infirmary, the brewhouse, bakehouse, and stables. Others had taken the school-house, some more of the south dorter, the provincial’s lodging, the jakes, the store-house, and the hill garden, and these ultimately passed to Lady Grey. Sir Thomas Cheyne, the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, had taken some of the buildings west of the frater. Everything farther south, down towards the river, had also been alienated. What was left for Cawarden consisted mainly of the church itself and the churchyard, the ankerhouse, the great cloister, the chapter-house, the east dorter, the porter’s lodge and buttery block, with all the rooms over these except Cobham’s, the frater, the kitchen, and such buildings standing between the frater and Water Lane, as did not belong to Cheyne.[1503] Much trouble was caused to Cawarden’s successors by uncertainty as to the extent of Cheyne’s claim.[1504] No doubt the grant constituted Cawarden the chief landowner in the district, but he complained that hardly any of his property was ‘mansionable’, and even at the time of his death he had only brought the annual value up to £70.[1505] The survey taken for the purposes of the grant puts it at no more than £19. On the other hand, the value of the stone and timber and other material of the buildings is estimated in the same survey at £879 3_s._ 4_d._, including an item of £709 11_s._ 0_d._ for lead alone. Evidently it was from the site-value and the judicious erection of new buildings and conversion of old ones, with the aid of this material, into ‘mansionable’ property, that Cawarden’s profit was to come. A convinced Protestant, he looked upon the church as a quarry. He pulled it down, with the exception of the south wall of the nave, which was to serve him as a garden wall, and the porch which he turned into a tenement. Other tenements were built on the site, and the rest of it, with so much of the churchyard as was not required for the new road, was let off. One of the tenants appears to have made tennis-courts on the site of the chancel. The demolition included St. Anne’s Chapel. This had been closed during Henry’s reign and used as a store-house for the Offices of Tents and Revels. For a while the inhabitants were allowed to worship in a room under an old gallery, presumably that which became the site of Bridewell Lane; but now this passed into Cawarden’s hands and he evicted them. When they plucked up heart, under Mary, to protest, he first offered them a site in the churchyard and a roof if they would be at the expense of building, and ultimately gave them an upper room, apparently at the north end of the east dorter. This fell down in 1597, and was rebuilt by the parishioners, who finally bought it, with a piece of the site of the old conventual church as a churchyard, from Sir George More in 1607–8.[1506] Cawarden effected an adjustment of boundaries on the east of the cloister with the Bishop of Ely.[1507] He then proceeded to build dwelling rooms along the south and east sides of the cloister.[1508] They must have been fairly shallow, for they left him a great square garden, but no doubt the recess of the chapter-house permitted increased depth towards the east. Under the west wing of the new building, adjoining the buttery, was a great vaulted room, 57 ft. by 25, which must, I think, have been the lavabo of the friars.[1509] East of this was a set of rooms capable of use as a separate dwelling, which came to be known as Lygon’s lodgings.[1510] The rest formed the capital mansion of the property, the ‘great house’, and was clearly intended for Cawarden’s own residence. It seems to have been sometimes let and sometimes occupied by Sir William More.[1511] The great garden must have been pleasant enough, with the north and west cloister alleys left standing, and a tinkling conduit in the west end, filled by a pipe from Clerkenwell.[1512]

The important part of the Blackfriars, from the point of view of theatrical topography, is the range of buildings on the western side of the two cloisters, parallel to Water Lane. The two blocks constituting this range, or so much of them as passed to Cawarden, are referred to in the surveys of 1548 and 1550 as the ‘olde butterie’ and the ‘vpper ffrater’.[1513] From the details given in these surveys and in the leases and other documents preserved at Loseley, it is possible to form a very fair notion of their structure and uses. The chief rooms in both blocks were upon an upper floor. The northern block was 110 ft. in length from north to south and 36 ft. in width. The upper rooms, however, were only 26 ft. wide, as 10 ft. was taken up by a high stone gallery which ran along the west of the building, and was perhaps connected with the wooden gallery leading to the Fleet.[1514] These rooms were four in number. That to the north, 21 ft. long, belonged to Cobham, and had a closet window looking into the church upon the south wall of which, for 20 ft. of its width, the block abutted.[1515] Then came two central rooms, a large and a small one, measuring together 52 ft. in length, and then a southern one, which with an entry measured 47 ft.[1516] The surveys treat the three rooms which fell to Cawarden as a single ‘hall place’. All four rooms had probably formed part of the guest-house of the convent, and had lodged Charles V. The ground floor held low rooms pierced at intervals by entries and with cellars underneath them. The chief entry or gate-house was at the southern end and served Cawarden’s mansion house when that was built.[1517] North of this came the buttery proper and a pantry, occupying with a small entry connecting them 29 ft.;[1518] then another stepped entry into the cloister serving afterwards as Cawarden’s garden gate;[1519] then probably more rooms under the two central upper rooms; then a staircase to Cobham’s upper room;[1520] and finally rooms belonging to the porter’s lodge, which were 21 ft. in length. This lodge extended backwards towards Water Lane, and over and around it were other rooms of Cobham’s and yet others forming the house of Sir George Harper.[1521] Some or all of these had also probably been part of the guest-house. Together with a garden of Cobham’s, they occupied rather less than half the space between the northern block and Water Lane. South of them, and included in Cawarden’s grant, were the convent kitchen with a room over it, and the kitchen yard, forming a space 84 ft. wide, and in length 74 ft. at the buttery end and 68 ft. at the lane end.