Shakespearean Playhouses Part 2

[Footnote 24: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 265.]

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

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

CHAPTER II

THE HOSTILITY OF THE CITY

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

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

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

[Footnote 25: So the Lord Mayor characterized playgoers; see _The Remembrancia_, in The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 75.]

[Footnote 26: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 164.]

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

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

[Footnote 27: _The Remembrancia_, in The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 69.]

This annoyance, serious enough in itself, was aggravated by the fact that most of the troupes were under the patronage of great n.o.blemen, and some were even high in favor with the Queen. As a result, the attempts on the part of the Lord Mayor and his Aldermen to regulate the players were often interfered with by other or higher authority.

Sometimes it was a particular n.o.bleman, whose request was not to be ignored, who intervened in behalf of his troupe; most often, however, it was the Privy Council, representing the Queen and the n.o.bility in general, which championed the cause of the actors and countermanded the decrees of the Lord Mayor and his brethren. One of the most notable things in the City's _Remembrancia_ is this long conflict of authority between the Common Council and the Privy Council over actors and acting.

In 1573 the situation seems to have approached a crisis. The Lord Mayor had become strongly puritanical, and in his efforts to suppress "stage-plays" was placing more and more obstacles in the way of the actors. The temper of the Mayor is revealed in two entries in the records of the Privy Council. On July 13, 1573, the Lords of the Council sent a letter to him requesting him "to permit liberty to certain Italian players"; six days later they sent a second letter, repeating the request, and "marveling that he did it not at their first request."[28] His continued efforts to suppress the drama finally led the troupes to appeal for relief to the Privy Council. On March 22, 1574, the Lords of the Council dispatched "a letter to the Lord Mayor to advertise their Lords.h.i.+ps what causes he hath to restrain plays." His answer has not been preserved, but that he persisted in his hostility to the drama is indicated by the fact that in May the Queen openly took sides with the players. To the Earl of Leicester's troupe she issued a special royal license, authorizing them to act "as well within our city of London and liberties of the same, as also within the liberties and freedoms of any our cities, towns, boroughs, etc., whatsoever"; and to the mayors and other officers she gave strict orders not to interfere with such performances: "Willing and commanding you, and every of you, as ye tender our pleasure, to permit and suffer them herein without any your lets, hindrances, or molestation during the term aforesaid, any act, statute, proclamation, or commandment heretofore made, or hereafter to be made, to the contrary notwithstanding."

[Footnote 28: Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_, VIII, 131, 132.]

This license was a direct challenge to the authority of the Lord Mayor. He dared not answer it as directly; but on December 6, 1574, he secured from the Common Council the pa.s.sage of an ordinance which placed such heavy restrictions upon acting as virtually to nullify the license issued by the Queen, and to regain for the Mayor complete control of the drama within the city. The Preamble of this remarkable ordinance clearly reveals the puritanical character of the City Government:

Whereas heretofore sundry great disorders and inconveniences have been found to ensue to this city by the inordinate haunting of great mult.i.tudes of people, specially youths, to plays, interludes, and shews: namely, occasion of frays and quarrels; evil practises of incontinency in great inns having chambers and secret places adjoining to their open stages and galleries; inveigling and alluring of maids, specially orphans and good citizens' children under age, to privy and unmeet contracts; the publis.h.i.+ng of unchaste, uncomly, and unshamefaced speeches and doings; withdrawing of the Queen's Majesty's subjects from divine service on Sundays and holy days, at which times such plays were chiefly used; unthrifty waste of the money of the poor and fond persons; sundry robberies by picking and cutting of purses; uttering of popular, busy, and seditious matters; and many other corruptions of youth, and other enormities; besides that also sundry slaughters and maimings of the Queen's subjects have happened by ruins of scaffolds, frames, and stages, and by engines, weapons, and powder used in plays. And whereas in time of G.o.d's visitation by the plague such a.s.semblies of the people in throng and press have been very dangerous for spreading of infection.... And for that the Lord Mayor and his brethren the Aldermen, together with the grave and discreet citizens in the Common Council a.s.sembled, do doubt and fear lest upon G.o.d's merciful withdrawing his hand of sickness from us (which G.o.d grant), the people, specially the meaner and most unruly sort, should with sudden forgetting of His visitation, without fear of G.o.d's wrath, and without due respect of the good and politique means that He hath ordained for the preservation of common weals and peoples in health and good order, return to the undue use of such enormities, to the great offense of G.o.d....[29]

[Footnote 29: For the complete doc.u.ment see W.C. Hazlitt, _The English Drama and Stage_, p. 27.]

The restrictions on playing imposed by the ordinance may be briefly summarized:

1. Only such plays should be acted as were free from all unchast.i.ty, seditiousness, and "uncomely matter."

2. Before being acted all plays should be "first perused and allowed in such order and form, and by such persons as by the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen for the time being shall be appointed."

3. Inns or other buildings used for acting, and their proprietors, should both be licensed by the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen.

4. The proprietors of such buildings should be "bound to the Chamberlain of London" by a sufficient bond to guarantee "the keeping of good order, and avoiding of" the inconveniences noted in the Preamble.

5. No plays should be given during the time of sickness, or during any inhibition ordered at any time by the city authorities.

6. No plays should be given during "any usual time of divine service,"

and no persons should be admitted into playing places until after divine services were over.

7. The proprietors of such places should pay towards the support of the poor a sum to be agreed upon by the city authorities.

In order, however, to avoid trouble with the Queen, or those n.o.blemen who were accustomed to have plays given in their homes for the private entertainment of themselves and their guests, the Common Council added, rather grudgingly, the following proviso:

Provided alway that this act (otherwise than touching the publis.h.i.+ng of unchaste, seditious, and unmeet matters) shall not extend to any plays, interludes, comedies, tragedies, or shews to be played or shewed in the private house, dwelling, or lodging of any n.o.bleman, citizen, or gentleman, which shall or will then have the same there so played or shewed in his presence for the festivity of any marriage, a.s.sembly of friends, or other like cause, without public or common collections of money of the auditory or beholders thereof.

Such regulations if strictly enforced would prove very annoying to the players. But, as the Common Council itself informs us, "these orders were not then observed." The troupes continued to play in the city, protected against any violent action on the part of the munic.i.p.al authorities by the known favor of the Queen and the frequent interference of the Privy Council. This state of affairs was not, of course, comfortable for the actors; but it was by no means desperate, and for several years after the pa.s.sage of the ordinance of 1574 they continued without serious interruption to occupy their inn-playhouses.

The long-continued hostility of the city authorities, however, of which the ordinance of 1574 was an ominous expression, led more or less directly to the construction of special buildings devoted to plays and situated beyond the jurisdiction of the Common Council. As the Reverend John Stockwood, in _A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse, 1578_, indignantly puts it:

Have we not _houses of purpose_, built with great charges for the maintenance of plays, and that _without the liberties_, as who would say "_There, let them say what they will say, we will play!_"

Thus came into existence playhouses; and with them dawned a new era in the history of the English drama.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SITE OF THE FIRST PLAYHOUSES

Finsbury Field and Holywell. The man walking from the Field towards Sh.o.r.editch is just entering Holywell Lane.

(From Agas's _Map of London_, representing the city as it was about 1560.)]

CHAPTER III

THE THEATRE

The hostility of the city to the drama was unquestionably the main cause of the erection of the first playhouse; yet combined with this were two other important causes, usually overlooked. The first was the need of a building specially designed to meet the requirements of the players and of the public, a need yearly growing more urgent as plays became more complex, acting developed into a finer art, and audiences increased in dignity as well as in size. The second and the more immediate cause was the appearance of a man with business insight enough to see that such a building would pay. The first playhouse, we should remember, was not erected by a troupe of actors, but by a money-seeking individual.[30] Although he was himself an actor, and the manager of a troupe, he did not, it seems, take the troupe into his confidence. In complete independence of any theatrical organization he proceeded with the erection of his building as a private speculation; and, we are told, he dreamed of the "continual great profit and commodity through plays that should be used there every week."

[Footnote 30: I emphasize this point because the opposite is the accepted opinion. We find it expressed in _The Cambridge History of English Literature_, VI, 431, as follows: "Certain players, finding the city obdurate, and unwilling to submit to its severe regulations, began to look about them for some means of carrying on their business out of reach of the mayor's authority," etc.]

This man, "the first builder of playhouses,"--and, it might have been added, the pioneer in a new field of business,--was James Burbage, originally, as we are told by one who knew him well, "by occupation a joiner; and reaping but a small living by the same, gave it over and became a common player in plays."[31] As an actor he was more successful, for as early as 1572 we find him at the head of Leicester's excellent troupe.

[Footnote 31: Deposition by Robert Myles, 1592, printed in Wallace's _The First London Theatre_, p. 141.]

Having in 1575 conceived the notion of erecting a building specially designed for dramatic entertainments, he was at once confronted with the problem of a suitable location. Two conditions narrowed his choice: first, the site had to be outside the jurisdiction of the Common Council; secondly, it had to be as near as possible to the city.

No doubt he at once thought of the two suburbs that were specially devoted to recreation, the Bankside to the south, and Finsbury Field to the north of the city. The Bankside had for many years been a.s.sociated in the minds of Londoners with "sports and pastimes."

Thither the citizens were accustomed to go to witness bear-baiting and bull-baiting, to practice archery, and to engage in various athletic sports. Thither, too, for many years the actors had gone to present their plays. In 1545 King Henry VIII had issued a proclamation against vagabonds, ruffians, idle persons, and common players,[32] in which he referred to their "fas.h.i.+ons commonly used at the Bank." The Bankside, however, was a.s.sociated with the lowest and most vicious pleasures of London, for here were situated the stews, bordering the river's edge. Since the players were at this time subject to the bitterest attacks from the London preachers, Burbage wisely decided not to erect the first permanent home of the drama in a locality already a common target for puritan invective.