Shakespearean Playhouses Part 9

After my humble commendations, and my duty also remembered--where it hath pleased your wors.h.i.+p to grant unto my husband in his life time one lease of your house within the Blackfriars, for the term of twenty-one years, with a proviso in the end thereof that he cannot neither let nor set the same without your wors.h.i.+p's consent under your hand in writing. And now for that it hath pleased G.o.d to call my said husband unto His mercy, having left behind him the charge of ten small children upon my hand, and my husband besides greatly indebted, not having the revenue of one groat any way coming in, but by making the best I may of such things as he hath left behind him, to relieve my little ones. May it therefore please your wors.h.i.+p, of your abundant clemency and accustomed goodness, to consider a poor widow's distressed estate, and for G.o.d's cause to comfort her with your wors.h.i.+p's warrant under your hand to let and set the same to my best comodity during the term of years in the said lease contained, not doing any waste. In all which doing, I shall evermore most abundantly pray unto G.o.d for the preservation of your wors.h.i.+p's long continuance. From Grenwich, the twenty-fifth of December,

By a poor and sorrowful widow,

ANNE FARRANT.[158]

[Footnote 157: Wallace, _The Evolution of the English Drama_, p. 163.]

[Footnote 158: Wallace, _The Evolution of the English Drama_, p.

153.]

Whether she secured in writing the permission she requested we do not know. Four years later More said that she did not. Possibly, however, she was orally given to understand that she might transfer the lease to her husband's former partner in the enterprise, William Hunnis.[159] Hunnis naturally was eager to make use of the building in preparation for the Christmas plays at Court. At some date before September 19, he secured the use of the playhouse on a temporary agreement with the widow; but in order to avoid any difficulty with More, he interviewed the latter, and presented a letter of recommendation from the Earl of Leicester. This letter has been preserved among Sir William's papers:

_Sir William More:_

Whereas my friend, Mr. Hunnis, this bearer, informeth me that he hath of late bought of Farrant's widow her lease of that house in Blackfriars which you made to her husband, deceased, and means there to practice the Queen's Children of the Chapel, being now in his charge, in like sort as his predecessor did, for the better training them to do Her Majesty's service; he is now a suitor to me to recommend him to your good favour--which I do very heartily, as one that I wish right well unto, and will give you thanks for any continuance or friends.h.i.+p you shall show him for the furtherance of this his honest request. And thus, with my hearty commendations, I wish you right heartily well to fare. From the Court, this nineteenth of September, 1581.

Your very friend,

R. LEICESTER.[160]

[Footnote 159: More had "refused to accept any rent but conditionally." Probably he refused written consent to the sublease for the same reason.]

[Footnote 160: Wallace, _The Evolution of the English Drama_, p. 154.]

The result of this interview we do not know. But on December 20 following, the widow made a formal lease of the property to William Hunnis and John Newman, at a rental of 20 13_s._ 4_d._ a year, an increase of 6 13_s._ 4_d._ over the rental she had to pay More. She required of them a bond of 100 to guarantee their performance of all the covenants of the lease. Thereupon the theatre under Hunnis and Newman resumed its career--if, indeed, this had ever been seriously interrupted.

In the course of time, More's anxiety to recover possession of the hall seems to have increased. The quarterly payments were not promptly met by the widow, and the repairs on the building were not made to his satisfaction. Probably through fear of the increasing dissatisfaction on the part of More, Hunnis and Newman transferred their lease, in 1583, to a young Welsh scrivener, Henry Evans, who had become interested in dramatic affairs. This transfer of the lease without More's written consent was a second clear breach of the original contract, and it gave More exactly the opportunity he sought.

Accordingly, he declared the original lease to Farrant void, and made a new lease of the house "unto his own man, Thomas Smallpiece, to try the said Evans his right." But Evans, being a lawyer, knew how to take care of himself. He "demurred in law," and "kept the same in his hands with long delays."

The widow, alarmed at the prospect of losing her lease, brought suit, in December, 1583, against Hunnis and Newman separately for the forfeiture of their several bonds of 100, contending that they had not paid promptly according to their agreement, and had not kept the building in proper repair. Hunnis and Newman separately brought suit in the Court of Requests for relief against the widow's suits.

Meanwhile More was demanding judgment against Evans. Hunnis, it seems, carried his troubles to the Court and there sought help. Queen Elizabeth could take no direct action, because Sir William More was a good friend of hers, who had entertained her in his home. But she might enlist the aid of one of her n.o.blemen who were interested in the drama. However this was, the young Earl of Oxford, himself a playwright and the patron of a troupe of boy-actors, came to the rescue of the theatre. He bought the lease of the building from Evans, and undertook to reorganize its affairs. To Hunnis's twelve Children of the Chapel he added the Children of St. Paul's Cathedral, making thus a company of adequate size. He retained Hunnis, no doubt, as one of the trainers of the Boys, and he kept Evans as manager of the troupe. Moreover, shortly after the purchase, probably in June, 1583, he made a free gift of the lease to his private secretary, John Lyly, a young man who had recently won fame with the first English novel, _Euphues_. The object of this, like the preceding transfers of t.i.tle, it seems, was to put as many legal blocks in the path of Sir William More as possible. More realized this, and complained specifically that "the t.i.tle was posted from one to another"; yet he had firmly made up his mind to recover the property, and in spite of Oxford's interference, he instructed his "learned council" to "demand judgment."

Meanwhile the dramatic organization at Blackfriars continued under the direction of Hunnis, Evans, and Lyly, with the Earl of Oxford as patron. Not only was Lyly the proprietor of the theatre, but he attempted to supply it with the necessary plays. He had already shown his power to tell in effective prose a pleasing love romance. That power he now turned to the production of his first play, written in haste for the Christmas festivities. The play, _Alexander and Campaspe_, was presented before Her Majesty on January 1, 1584, and at Blackfriars, with great applause. Lyly's second play, _Sapho and Phao_, was produced at Court on March 3, following, and also at Blackfriars before the general public.

But at the Easter term, 1584, Sir William More got judgment in his favor. The widow begged Sir Francis Walsingham to intercede in her behalf, declaring that the loss of the lease "might be her utter undoing."[161] Walsingham sent the letter to More, and apparently urged a consideration of her case. More, however, refused to yield. He banished Lyly, Hunnis, Evans, and the Children from the "great upper hall," and reconverted the building into tenements.

[Footnote 161: The letter is printed in full by Mr. Wallace in _The Evolution of the English Drama_, p. 158. Mr. Wallace, however, misdates it. It was not written until after More had "recovered it [the lease] against Evans."]

CHAPTER VI

ST. PAUL'S

As shown in the preceding chapter, not only were the Children of the Chapel Royal and of Windsor called upon to entertain the Queen with dramatic performances, but the Children of St. Paul's were also expected to amuse their sovereign on occasion. And following the example of the Children of the Chapel and of Windsor in giving performances before the public in Blackfriars, the Paul's Boys soon began to give such performances in a building near the Cathedral.[162]

The building so employed was doubtless one of the structures owned by the Church. Burbage and Heminges refer to it as "the said house near St. Paul's Church."[163] Richard Flecknoe, in _A Discourse of the English Stage_ (1664), places it "behind the Convocation-house in Paul's";[164] and Howes, in his continuation of Stow's _Annals_ (1631), says that it was the "singing-school" of the Cathedral.[165]

That the auditorium was small we may well believe. So was the stage.

Certain speakers in the Induction to _What You Will_, acted at Paul's in 1600, say: "Let's place ourselves within the curtains, for, good faith, the stage is so very little, we shall wrong the general eye else very much." Both Fleay and Lawrence[166] contend that the building was "round, like the Globe," and as evidence they cite the Prologue to Marston's _Antonio's Revenge_, acted at Paul's in 1600, in which the phrases "within this round" and "within this ring" are applied to the theatre. The phrases, however, may have reference merely to the circular disposition of the benches about the stage.

That high prices of admission to the little theatre were charged we learn from a marginal note in _Pappe with an Hatchet_ (1589), which states that if a tragedy "be showed at Paul's, it will cost you four pence; at the Theatre two pence."[167] The Children, indeed, catered to a very select public. Persons who went thither were gentle by birth and by behavior as well; and playwrights, we are told, could always feel sure there of the "calm attention of a choice audience."[168]

Lyly, in the Prologue to _Midas_, acted at Paul's in 1589, says: "Only this doth encourage us, that presenting our studies before _Gentlemen_, though they receive an inward dislike, we shall not be hissed with an open disgrace." Things were quite otherwise in the public theatres of Sh.o.r.editch and the Bankside.

[Footnote 162: Murray, _English Dramatic Companies_, I, 325, erroneously says: "Their public place was, probably, from the first, the courtyard of St. Paul's Cathedral."]

[Footnote 163: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London a.s.sociates_, p.

95.]

[Footnote 164: That is, in or near Pater Noster Row.]

[Footnote 165: _Annales, or A Generall Chronicle of England_, 1631, signature liii 1, verso.]

[Footnote 166: F.G. Fleay, _A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama_, II, 76; W.J. Lawrence, _The Elizabethan Playhouse_, p. 17.]

[Footnote 167: R.W. Bond, _The Complete Works of John Lyly_, III, 408.

Higher prices of admission were charged to all the private playhouses.]

[Footnote 168: John Marston, _Antonio's Revenge_, acted at Paul's in 1600.]

Under the direction of their master, Sebastian Westcott, the Boys acted before the public at least as early as 1578,[169] for in December of that year the Privy Council ordered the Lord Mayor to permit them to "exercise plays" within the city;[170] and Stephen Gosson, in his _Plays Confuted_, written soon afterwards, mentions _Cupid and Psyche_ as having been recently "plaid at Paules."

[Footnote 169: There is a record of a play by the Paul's Boys in 1527 before amba.s.sadors from France, dealing with the heretic Luther; but exactly when they began to give public performances for money we do not know.]

[Footnote 170: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 432.]

Westcott died in 1582, and was succeeded by Thomas Gyles. Shortly after this we find the Children of Paul's acting publicly with the Children of the Chapel Royal at the little theatre in Blackfriars. For them John Lyly wrote his two earliest plays, _Campaspe_ and _Sapho and Phao_, as the t.i.tle-pages clearly state. But their stay at Blackfriars was short. When in 1584 Sir William More closed up the theatre there, they fell back upon their singing-school as the place for their public performances.

At the same time the Queen became greatly interested in promoting their dramatic activities. To their master, Thomas Gyles, she issued, in April, 1585, a special commission "to take up apt and meet children" wherever he could find them. It was customary for the Queen to issue such a commission to the masters of her two private chapels, but never before, or afterwards, had this power to impress children been conferred upon a person not directly connected with the royal choristers. Its issuance to Gyles in 1585 clearly indicates the Queen's interest in the Paul's Boys as actors, and her expectation of being frequently entertained by them. And to promote her plans still further, she appointed the successful playwright John Lyly as their vice-master, with the understanding, no doubt, that he was to keep them--and her--supplied with plays. This he did, for all his comedies, except the two just mentioned, were written for the Cathedral Children, and were acted by them at Court, and in their little theatre "behind the Convocation House."

Unfortunately under Lyly's leaders.h.i.+p the Boys became involved in the bitter Martin Marprelate controversy, for which they were suppressed near the end of 1590. The printer of Lyly's _Endimion_, in 1591, says to the reader: "Since the plays in Paul's were dissolved, there are certain comedies come to my hands by chance, which were presented before Her Majesty at several times by the Children of Paul's."

Exactly how long the Children were restrained it is hard to determine.

In 1596 Thomas Nash, in _Have With You to Saffron Walden_, expressed a desire to see "the plays at Paul's up again." Mr. Wallace thinks they may have been allowed "up again" in 1598;[171] Fleay, in 1599 or 1600;[172] the evidence, however, points, I think, to the spring or early summer of 1600. The Children began, naturally, with old plays, "musty fopperies of antiquity"; the first, or one of the first, new plays they presented was Marston's _Jack Drum's Entertainment_, the date of which can be determined within narrow limits. References to Kempe's Morris, which was danced in February, 1600, as being still a common topic of conversation, and the entry of the play in the Stationers' Registers on September 8, 1600, point to the spring or early summer of 1600 as the date of composition. This makes very significant the following pa.s.sage in the play referring to the Paul's Boys as just beginning to act again after their long inhibition:

_Sir Ed._ I saw the Children of Paul's last night, And troth they pleas'd me pretty, pretty well.

The Apes in time will do it handsomely.

_Plan._ S'faith, I like the audience that frequenteth there With much applause. A man shall not be choak't With the stench of garlic, nor be pasted To the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer.

_Bra. Ju._ 'Tis a good, gentle audience; and I hope the Boys Will come one day into the Court of Requests.

[Footnote 171: _The Children of the Chapel_, p. 153.]

[Footnote 172: _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, p. 152.]

Shortly after this the Boys were indeed called "into the Court of Requests," for on New Year's Day, 1601, they were summoned to present a play before Her Majesty.

Their master now was Edward Pierce, who had succeeded Thomas Gyles. In 1605 the experienced Edward Kirkham, driven from the management of the Blackfriars Theatre, became an a.s.sistant to Pierce in the management of Paul's. In this capacity we find him in 1606 receiving the payment for the two performances of the Boys at Court that year.[173]