Shakespearean Playhouses | Page 6

Queen's Players in 1583, and he died in 1588.
[Footnote 16: First printed in 1611; reprinted by J.O. Halliwell for The Shakespeare Society in 1844.]
At the Bull in Bishops-gate-street, where the Queen's Players oftentimes played, Tarleton coming on the stage, one from the gallery threw a pippin at him.
There was one Banks, in the time of Tarleton, who served the Earl of Essex, and had a horse of strange qualities; and being at the Cross Keys in Gracious Street getting money with him, as he was mightily resorted to. Tarleton then, with his fellows playing at the Bell by, came into the Cross Keys, amongst many people, to see fashions.
At the Bull at Bishops-gate was a play of Henry the Fifth.
The several "jests" which follow these introductory sentences indicate that the inn-yards differed in no essential way from the early public playhouses.
1588. "John Mathews played his master's prize the 31 day of January, 1588, at the Bell Savage without Ludgate."[17]
[Footnote 17: MS. Sloane, 2530, f. 6-7, quoted by Halliwell in his edition of Tarlton's Jests, p. xi. There is some difficulty with the date. One of the "masters" before whom the prize was played was "Rycharde Tarlton," whom Halliwell takes to be the famous actor of that name; but Tarleton the actor died on September 3, 1588. Probably Halliwell in transcribing the manuscript silently modernized the date from the Old Style.]
1589. In November Lord Burghley directed the Lord Mayor to "give order for the stay of all plays within the city." In reply the Lord Mayor wrote:
According to which your Lordship's good pleasure, I presently sent for such players as I could hear of; so as there appeared yesterday before me the Lord Strange's Players, to whom I specially gave in charge and required them in Her Majesty's name to forbear playing until further order might be given for their allowance in that respect. Whereupon the Lord Admiral's Players very dutifully obeyed; but the others, in very contemptuous manner departing from me, went to the Cross Keys and played that afternoon.[18]
[Footnote 18: Lansdowne MSS. 60, quoted by Collier, History of English Dramatic Poetry (1879), I, 265.]
1594. On October 8, Henry, Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain and the patron of Shakespeare's company, wrote to the Lord Mayor:
After my hearty commendations. Where my now company of players have been accustomed for the better exercise of their quality, and for the service of Her Majesty if need so require, to play this winter time within the city at the Cross Keys in Gracious Street, these are to require and pray your Lordship (the time being such as, thanks to God, there is now no danger of the sickness) to permit and suffer them so to do.[19]
[Footnote 19: The Remembrancia, The Malone Society's Collections, I, 73.]
By such devices as this the players were usually able to secure permission to act "within the city" during the disagreeable months of the winter when the large playhouses in the suburbs were difficult of access.
1594. Anthony Bacon, the elder brother of Francis, came to lodge in Bishopsgate Street. This fact very much disturbed his good mother, who feared lest his servants might be corrupted by the plays to be seen at the Bull near by.[20]
[Footnote 20: See W. Rendle, The Inns of Old Southwark, p. 236.]
1596. William Lambarde, in his Perambulation of Kent,[21] observes that none of those who go "to Paris Garden, the Bell Savage, or Theatre, to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence play, can account of any pleasant spectacle unless they first pay one penny at the gate, another at the entry of the scaffold, and the third for a quiet standing."
[Footnote 21: The passage does not appear in the earlier edition of 1576, though it was probably written shortly after the erection of the Theatre in the autumn of 1576.]
1602. On March 31 the Privy Council wrote to the Lord Mayor that the players of the Earl of Oxford and of the Earl of Worcester had been "joined by agreement together in one company, to whom, upon notice of Her Majesty's pleasure, at the suit of the Earl of Oxford, toleration hath been thought meet to be granted." The letter concludes:
And as the other companies that are allowed, namely of me the Lord Admiral, and the Lord Chamberlain, be appointed their certain houses, and one and no more to each company, so we do straightly require that this third company be likewise [appointed] to one place. And because we are informed the house called the Boar's Head is the place they have especially used and do best like of, we do pray and require you that the said house, namely the Boar's Head, may be assigned unto them.[22]
[Footnote 22: The Remembrancia, The Malone Society's Collections, I, 85.]
That the strong Oxford-Worcester combination should prefer the Boar's Head