Shakespearean Playhouses Part 7

[Footnote 118: Brayne _v._ Burbage, 1592, printed in full by Wallace, _The First London Theatre_, pp. 109-52. See especially pp. 126, 148.]

[Footnote 119: Easer?]

[Footnote 120: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 148; cf. p. 126.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SITE OF THE CURTAIN PLAYHOUSE

From _An Actual Survey of the Parish of St Leonard in Sh.o.r.editch taken in the year 1745_ by Peter Cha.s.serau, Surveyor. The key to the map gives "93" as Curtain Court, probably the site of the old playhouse, "87" as New Inn Yard, and "94" as Holywell Court, both interesting in connection with Burbage's Theatre. (Redrawn from the original for this volume.)]

From this statement it is evident that Henry Lanman was the sole proprietor of the Curtain as far back as 1585, and the presumption is that his proprietors.h.i.+p was of still earlier date. This presumption is strengthened by the fact that in a sale of the Curtain estate early in 1582, he is specifically mentioned as having a tenure of an "edifice or building" erected in the Curtain Close, that is, that section of the estate next to the Field, on which the playhouse was built.[121]

Since Lanman is not mentioned as having any other property on the estate, the "edifice or building" referred to was probably the playhouse. The doc.u.ment gives no indication as to how long he had held possession of the "edifice," but the date of sale, March, 1582, carries us back to within four years of the erection of the Curtain, and it seems reasonable to suppose, though of course we cannot be sure, that Lanman had been proprietor of the building from the very beginning.[122]

[Footnote 121: Tomlins, _op. cit._, pp. 29-31.]

[Footnote 122: Of this Henry Lanman we know nothing beyond the facts here revealed. Possibly he was a brother of the distinguished actor John Lanman (the name is variously spelled Lanman, Laneman, Lenmann, Laneham, Laynman, Lanham), one of the chief members of Leicester's troupe, and one of the twelve men selected in 1583 to form the Queen's Men. But speculation of this sort is vain. It is to be hoped that in the future some student will investigate the life of this obscure theatrical manager, and trace his connection with the early history of the drama.]

Certain records of the sale of the Curtain estate shortly before and shortly after the erection of the playhouse are preserved, but these throw very little light upon the playhouse itself. We learn that on February 20, 1567, Lord Mountjoy and his wife sold the estate to Maurice Longe, clothworker, and his son William Longe, for the sum of 60; and that on August 23, 1571, Maurice Longe and his wife sold it to the then Lord Mayor, Sir William Allyn, for the sum of 200. In both doc.u.ments the property is described in the same words: "All that house, tenement or lodge commonly called the _Curtain_, and all that parcel of ground and close, walled and enclosed with a brick wall on the west and north parts, called also the _Curtain Close_." The lodge here referred to, generally known as "Curtain House," was on, or very near, Holywell Lane;[123] the playhouse, as already stated, was erected in the close near the Field.[124]

[Footnote 123: Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 365.]

[Footnote 124: The Privy Council on March 10, 1601, refers to it as "The Curtaine in Moorefeildes"; in ancient times, says Stow, Moorefields extended to Holywell. See Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 364.]

How long Sir William Allyn held the property, or why it reverted to the Longe family, we do not know. But on March 18, 1582, we find William Longe, the son of "Maurice Longe, citizen and clothworker, of London, deceased," selling the same property, described in the same words, to one "Thomas Harberte, citizen and girdler, of London." In the meantime, of course, the playhouse had been erected, but no clear or direct mention of the building is made in the deed of sale.

Possibly it was included in the conventionally worded phrase: "and all and singular other messuages, tenements, edifices, and buildings, with all and singular their appurtenances, erected and builded upon the said close called the Curtain."[125] Among the persons named as holding tenures of the above-mentioned "edifices and buildings" in the close was Henry Lanman. It seems not improbable, therefore, that the Curtain, like the Theatre, was erected on leased ground.

[Footnote 125: Tomlins, _op. cit._, p. 31.]

It is impossible to give a connected history of the Curtain. Most of the references to it that we now possess are invectives in early puritanical writings, or bare mention, along with other playhouses, in letters or ordinances of the Privy Council and the Lord Mayor. Such references as these do not much help us in determining what companies successively occupied the building, or what varying fortunes marked its owners.h.i.+p and management. Yet a few scattered facts have sifted down to us, and these I have arranged in chronological order.

On the afternoon of April 6, 1580, an earthquake, especially severe in Holywell, shook the building during the performance of a play, and greatly frightened the audience. Munday says merely: "at the playhouses the people came running forth, surprised with great astonishment";[126] but Stubbes, the Puritan, who saw in the event a "fearful judgment of G.o.d," writes with fervor: "The like judgment almost did the Lord show unto them a little before, being a.s.sembled at their theatres to see their bawdy interludes and other trumperies practised, for He caused the earth mightily to shake and quaver, as though all would have fallen down; whereat the people, sore amazed, some leapt down from the top of the turrets, pinnacles, and towers where they stood, to the ground, whereof some had their legs broke, some their arms, some their backs, some hurt one where, some another, and many score crushed and bruised."[127]

[Footnote 126: _View of Sundry Examples_, 1580.]

[Footnote 127: _The Anatomy of Abuses_, ed. F.J. Furnivall, New Shakspere Society, p. 180. For other descriptions of this earthquake see Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 369.]

The disturbance at the Theatre and the Curtain in 1584, when one Challes "did turn upon the toe upon the belly of" an apprentice "sleeping upon the gra.s.s" in the Field near by, has been mentioned in the preceding chapter. If the interpretation of the facts there given is correct, Lord Arundel's Players were then occupying the Curtain.

In the winter of 1585 Lanman entered into his seven years' agreement with Burbage and Brayne by which the Theatre and the Curtain were placed under one management, and the profits shared "in divident between them." This agreement was faithfully kept by both parties, but there is no evidence that after the expiration of the seven years, in the winter of 1592, the affiliation was continued. What effect the arrangement had upon the companies of players occupying the two theatres we cannot now determine. To this period, however, I would a.s.sign the appearance of the Queen's Men at the Curtain.[128]

[Footnote 128: _Tarlton's Jests_, ed. by J.O. Halliwell for the Shakespeare Society (1844), p. 16. For a discussion see the preceding chapter on the Theatre, p. 72.]

On July 28, 1597, as a result of the performance of Thomas Nashe's _The Isle of Dogs_, by Pembroke's Men at the Swan,[129] the Privy Council ordered the plucking down of "the Curtain and the Theatre."[130] The order, however, was not carried out, and in October plays were allowed again as before.

[Footnote 129: For details see the chapter on the Swan.]

[Footnote 130: Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_, XXVII, 313.]

At this time the Lord Chamberlain's men were at the Curtain, having recently moved thither in consequence of the difficulties Cuthbert Burbage was having with Gyles Alleyn over the Theatre property. During the stay of the Chamberlain's Company, which numbered among its members William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, William Kempe (who had succeeded Tarleton in popular favor as a clown), John Heminges, Thomas Pope, and Augustine Phillips, the playhouse probably attained its greatest distinction. Both Shakespeare and Jonson wrote plays for the troupe; _Romeo and Juliet_, we are told, "won Curtain plaudities," as no doubt did many other of Shakespeare's early masterpieces; and Jonson's _Every Man in His Humour_ created such enthusiasm here on its first performance as to make its author famous.[131]

[Footnote 131: Marston, _The Scourge of Villainy_ (1598); Bullen, _The Works of John Marston_, III, 372.]

In the summer of 1599 the Chamberlain's Men moved into their splendid new home, the Globe, on the Bankside, and the Curtain thus abandoned fell on hard times. Perhaps it was let occasionally to traveling troupes; in Jeaffreson's _Middles.e.x County Records_, under the date of March 11, 1600, is a notice of the arrest of one William Haukins "charged with a purse taken at a play at the Curtain." But shortly after, in April, 1600, when Henslowe and Alleyn began to erect their splendid new Fortune Playhouse, they were able to give the impression to Tilney, the Master of the Revels, and to the Privy Council, that the Curtain was to be torn down. Thus in the Council's warrant for the building of the Fortune, dated April 8, 1600, we read that "another house is [to be] pulled down instead of it";[132] and when the Puritans later made vigorous protests against the erection of the Fortune, the Council defended itself by stating that "their Lords.h.i.+ps have been informed by Edmund Tilney, Esquire, Her Majesty's servant, and Master of the Revels, that the house now in hand to be built by the said Edward Alleyn is not intended to increase the number of the playhouses, but to be instead of another, namely the Curtain, which is either to be ruined and plucked down, or to be put to some other good use."[133]

[Footnote 132: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 52.]

[Footnote 133: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 82.]

All this talk of the Curtain's being plucked down or devoted to other uses suggests a contemplated change in the owners.h.i.+p or management of the building. We do not know when Lanman died (in 1592 he described himself as fifty-four years of age),[134] but we do know that at some date prior to 1603 the Curtain had pa.s.sed into the hands of a syndicate. When this syndicate was organized, or who const.i.tuted its members, we cannot say. Thomas Pope, in his will, dated July 22, 1603, mentions his share "of, in, and to all that playhouse, with the appurtenances, called the Curtain";[135] and John Underwood, in his will, dated October 4, 1624, mentions his "part or share ... in the said playhouses called the Blackfriars, the Globe on the Bankside, and the Curtain."[136] It may be significant that both Pope and Underwood were sharers also in the Globe. Since, however, further information is wanting, it is useless to speculate. We can only say that at some time after the period of Lanman's sole proprietors.h.i.+p, the Curtain pa.s.sed into the hands of a group of sharers; and that after a discussion in 1600 of demolis.h.i.+ng the building or devoting it to other uses, it entered upon a long and successful career.

[Footnote 134: Wallace, _op. cit._, p. 148.]

[Footnote 135: J.P. Collier, _Lives of the Original Actors in Shakespeare's Plays_, p. 127. In exactly the same words Pope disposed of his share in the Globe.]

[Footnote 136: _Ibid._, p. 230.]

On May 10, 1601, "the actors at the Curtain"[137] gave serious offense by representing on the stage persons "of good desert and quality, that are yet alive, under obscure manner, but yet in such sort as all the hearers may take notice both of the matter and the persons that are meant thereby." The Privy Council ordered the Justices of the Peace to examine into the case and to punish the offenders.[138]

[Footnote 137: Possibly Derby's Men.]

[Footnote 138: See Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_, x.x.xI, 346.]

Early in 1604 a draft of a royal patent for Queen Anne's Players--who had hitherto been under the patronage of Worcester[139]--gives those players permission to act "within their now usual houses, called the Curtain, and the Boar's Head."[140] On April 9, 1604, the Privy Council authorized the three companies of players that had been taken under royal patronage "to exercise their plays in their several and usual houses for that purpose, and no other, viz., the Globe, scituate in Maiden Lane on the Bankside in the County of Surrey, the Fortune in Golding Lane, and the Curtain in Holywell."[141] The King's Men (the Burbage-Shakespeare troupe) occupied the Globe; Prince Henry's Men (the Henslowe-Alleyn troupe), the Fortune; and Queen Anne's Men, the Curtain.

[Footnote 139: The company was formed by an amalgamation of Oxford's and Worcester's Men in 1602. See The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 85.]

[Footnote 140: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 266.]

[Footnote 141: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 61; Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_, x.x.xII, 511.]

But the Queen's Men were probably dissatisfied with the Curtain. It was small and antiquated, and it must have suffered by comparison with the more splendid Globe and Fortune. So the Queen's players had built for themselves a new and larger playhouse, called "The Red Bull." This was probably ready for occupancy in 1605, yet it is impossible to say exactly when the Queen's Men left the Curtain; their patent of April 15, 1609, gives them permission to act "within their now usual houses called the Red Bull, in Clerkenwell, and the Curtain in Holywell."[142] It may be that they retained control of the Curtain in order to prevent compet.i.tion.

[Footnote 142: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 270.]

What company occupied the Curtain after Queen Anne's Men finally surrendered it is not clear. Mr. Murray is of the opinion that Prince Charles's Men moved into the Curtain "about December, 1609, or early in 1610."[143]

[Footnote 143: _English Dramatic Companies_, I, 230.]

In 1613 "a company of young men" acted _The Hector of Germany_ "at the Red Bull and at the Curtain." Such plays, however, written and acted by amateurs, were not uncommon, and no significance can be attached to the event.

In 1622, as we learn from the Herbert Ma.n.u.scripts, the Curtain was being occupied by Prince Charles's Servants.[144] In the same year the author of _Vox Graculi, or The Jack Daw's Prognostication for 1623_, refers to it thus: "If company come current to the Bull and Curtain, there will be more money gathered in one afternoon than will be given to Kingsland Spittle in a whole month; also, if at this time about the hours of four and five it wax cloudy and then rain downright, they shall sit dryer in the galleries than those who are the understanding men in the yard."

[Footnote 144: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 59; cf. Chalmers's _Supplemental Apology_, p. 213, note _y_. Murray gives the date incorrectly as 1623.]

Prince Charles's Men did not remain long at the Curtain. At some date between June 10 and August 19, 1623, they moved to the larger and more handsome Red Bull.[145] After this, so far as I can discover, there is no evidence to connect the playhouse with dramatic performances.

Malone, who presumably bases his statements on the now lost records of Herbert, says that shortly after the accession of King Charles I it "seems to have been used only by prize-fighters."[146]

[Footnote 145: Murray, _English Dramatic Companies_, I, 237, note 1.]

[Footnote 146: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 54, note 2.]