Shakespearean Playhouses Part 22

In the autumn of 1608 the proprietors of the Globe acquired the Blackfriars Theatre for the use of their company during the severe winter months. This splendid building, situated in the very heart of the city, was entirely roofed in, and could be comfortably heated in cold weather. Henceforth the open-air Globe was used only during the pleasant season of the year; that is, according to the evidence of the Herbert Ma.n.u.script, from about the first of May until the first of November.

On June 29, 1613, the Globe caught fire during the performance of a play, and was burned to the ground--the first disaster of the sort recorded in English theatrical history. The event aroused great interest in London, and as a result we have numerous accounts of the catastrophe supplying us with full details. We learn that on a warm "sunne-s.h.i.+ne" afternoon the large building was "filled with people"--among whom were Ben Jonson, John Taylor (the Water-Poet), and Sir Henry Wotton--to witness a new play by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, called _All is True_, or, as we now know it, _Henry VIII_, produced with unusual magnificence. Upon the entrance of the King in the fourth scene of the first act, two cannon were discharged in a royal salute. One of the cannon hurled a bit of its wadding upon the roof and set fire to the thatch; but persons in the audience were so interested in the play that for a time they paid no attention to the fire overhead. As a result they were soon fleeing for their lives; and within "one short hour" nothing was left of the "stately" Globe.

I quote below some of the more interesting contemporary accounts of this notable event. Howes, the chronicler, thus records the fact in his continuation of Stow's _Annals_:

Upon St. Peter's Day last, the playhouse or theatre called the Globe, upon the Bankside, near London, by negligent discharge of a peal of ordnance, close to the south side thereof, the thatch took fire, and the wind suddenly dispersed the flames round about, and in a very short s.p.a.ce the whole building was quite consumed; and no man hurt: the house being filled with people to behold the play, _viz._ of Henry the Eight.[404]

[Footnote 404: Howes's continuation of Stow's _Annals_ (1631), p.

1003.]

Sir Henry Wotton, in a letter to a friend, gives the following gossipy account:

Now to let matters of state sleep. I will entertain you at the present with what happened this week at the Bankside.

The King's Players had a new play, called _All is True_, representing some princ.i.p.al pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with many extraordinary circ.u.mstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; the Knights of the Order with their Georges and Garter, the guards with their embroidered coats, and the like--sufficient in truth within awhile to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now King Henry, making a masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabrick; wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broiled him, if he had not, by the benefit of a provident wit, put it out with bottle ale.[405]

[Footnote 405: _Reliquiae Wottonianae_ (ed. 1672), p. 425.]

John Chamberlain, writing to Sir Ralph Winwood, July 8, 1613, refers to the accident thus:

The burning of the Globe or playhouse on the Bankside on St.

Peter's Day cannot escape you; which fell out by a peal of chambers (that I know not upon what occasion were to be used in the play), the tampin or stopple of one of them lighting in the thatch that cover'd the house, burn'd it down to the ground in less than two hours, with a dwelling house adjoining; and it was a great marvel and fair grace of G.o.d that the people had so little harm, having but two narrow doors to get out.[406]

[Footnote 406: Ralph Winwood, _Memorials of Affairs of State_ (ed.

1725), III, 469.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST GLOBE

From Visscher's _View of London_, published in 1616, but representing the city as it was several years earlier.]

The Reverend Thomas Lorkin writes from London to Sir Thomas Puckering under the date of June 30, 1613:

No longer since than yesterday, while Burbage's company were acting at the Globe the play of _Henry VIII_, and there shooting off certain chambers in way of triumph, the fire catched and fastened upon the thatch of the house, and there burned so furiously, as it consumed the whole house, all in less than two hours, the people having enough to do to save themselves.[407]

[Footnote 407: Printed in Birch, _The Court and Times of James the First_ (1849), I, 251.]

A contemporary ballad[408] gives a vivid and amusing account of the disaster:

_A Sonnet upon the Pitiful Burning of the Globe Playhouse in London_

Now sit thee down, Melpomene, Wrapt in a sea-coal robe, And tell the dolefull tragedy That late was played at Globe; For no man that can sing and say Was scared on St. Peter's day.

_Oh sorrow, pitiful sorrow, and yet all this is true._[409]

All you that please to understand, Come listen to my story; To see Death with his raking brand Mongst such an auditory; Regarding neither Cardinall's might, Nor yet the rugged face of Henry the eight.

_Oh sorrow_, etc.

This fearful fire began above, A wonder strange and _true_, And to the stage-house did remove, As round as taylor's clew, And burnt down both beam and snagg, And did not spare the silken flagg.

_Oh sorrow_, etc.

Out run the Knights, out run the lords, And there was great ado; Some lost their hats, and some their swords; Then out run Burbage, too.

The reprobates, though drunk on Monday, Prayd for the fool and Henry Condy.

_Oh sorrow_, etc.

The periwigs and drum-heads fry Like to a b.u.t.ter firkin; A woeful burning did betide To many a good buff jerkin.

Then with swolen eyes, like drunken Flemminges Distressed stood old stuttering Heminges.

_Oh sorrow_, etc.

[Footnote 408: Printed by Haslewood in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ (1816), from an old ma.n.u.script volume of poems. Printed also by Halliwell-Phillipps (_Outlines_, I, 310) "from a ma.n.u.script of the early part of the seventeenth century of unquestionable authenticity."

Perhaps it is the same as the "Doleful Ballad" entered in the Stationers' Register, 1613. I follow Halliwell-Phillipps's text, but omit the last three stanzas.]

[Footnote 409: Punning on the t.i.tle _All is True_.]

Ben Jonson, who saw the disaster, left us the following brief account:

The Globe, the glory of the Bank, Which, though it were the fort of the whole parish, Flanked with a ditch, and forced out of a marish, I saw with two poor chambers taken in, And razed ere thought could urge this might have been!

See the world's ruins! nothing but the piles Left--and wit since to cover it with tiles.[410]

[Footnote 410: _An Execration upon Vulcan._]

The players were not seriously inconvenienced, for they could s.h.i.+ft to their other house, the Blackfriars, in the city. The owners of the building, however, suffered a not inconsiderable pecuniary loss. For a time they hesitated about rebuilding, one cause of their hesitation being the short term that their lease of the ground had to run.

Possibly a second cause was a doubt as to the owners.h.i.+p of the ground, arising from certain transactions recorded below. In October, 1600, Sir Nicholas Brend had been forced to transfer the Globe estate, with other adjacent property, to Sir Matthew Brown and John Collett as security for a debt of 2500; and a few days after he died. Since the son and heir, Matthew Brend, was a child less than two years old, an uncle, Sir John Bodley, was appointed trustee. In 1608 Bodley, by unfair means, it seems, purchased from Collett the Globe property, and thus became the landlord of the actors. But young Matthew Brend was still under age, and Bodley's t.i.tle to the property was not regarded as above suspicion.[411]

[Footnote 411: These interesting facts were revealed by Mr. Wallace in the London _Times_, April 30 and May 1, 1914.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MERIAN'S VIEW OF LONDON

A section from Merian's _View_, showing the Bankside playhouses. This _View_, printed in Ludvig Gottfried's _Neuwe Archontologia Cosmica_ (Frankfurt am Mayn, 1638), represents London as it was about the year 1612, and was mainly based on Visscher's _View_, with some additions from other sources.]

Four months after the burning of the Globe, on October 26, 1613, Sir John Bodley granted the proprietors of the building a renewal of the lease with an extension of the term until December 25, 1635.[412] But a lease from Bodley alone, in view of the facts just indicated, was not deemed sufficient; so on February 14, 1614, Heminges, the two Burbages, and Condell visited the country-seat of the Brends, and secured the signature of the young Matthew Brend, and of his mother as guardian, to a lease of the Globe site with a term ending on December 25, 1644.

[Footnote 412: Did he increase the amount of the rental to 25 per annum? The rent paid for the Blackfriars was 40 per annum; in 1635 the young actors state that the housekeepers paid for both playhouses "not above 65."]

Protected by these two leases, the Globe sharers felt secure; and they went forward apace with the erection of their new playhouse. They made an a.s.sessment of "50 or 60" upon each share.[413] Since at this time there were fourteen shares, the amount thus raised was 700 or 840.

This would probably be enough to erect a building as large and as well equipped as the old Globe. But the proprietors determined upon a larger and a very much handsomer building. As Howes, the continuer of Stow's _Annals_, writes, "it was new builded in far fairer manner than before"; or as John Taylor, the Water-Poet, puts it:

As gold is better that's in fire tried, So is the Bankside _Globe_ that late was burn'd.[414]

[Footnote 413: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London a.s.sociates_, p.

60.]

[Footnote 414: _Works_ (1630), p. 31; The Spenser Society reprint, p.

515.]

Naturally the cost of rebuilding exceeded the original estimate.

Heminges tells us that on one share, or one-fourteenth, he was required to pay for "the re-edifying about the sum of 120."[415]

This would indicate a total cost of "about" 1680. Heminges should know, for he was the business manager of the organization; and his truthfulness cannot be questioned. Since, however, the adjective "about," especially when multiplied by fourteen, leaves a generous margin of uncertainty, it is gratifying to have a specific statement from one of the sharers in 1635 that the owners had "been at the charge of 1400 in building of the said house upon the burning down of the former."[416] Heminges tells us that "he found that the re-edifying of the said playhouse would be a very great charge," and that he so "doubted what benefit would arise thereby" that he actually gave away half of one share "to Henry Condell, _gratis_."[417] But his fears were unfounded. We learn from Witter that after the rebuilding of the Globe the "yearly value" of a share was greater "by much" than it had been before.[418]

[Footnote 415: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London a.s.sociates_, p.

61.]