Shakespearean Playhouses Part 41

The novelty of the scheme and the great size of the proposed building must have alarmed the owners of playhouses. That the established theatrical proprietors were hostile is clearly indicated by the att.i.tude of Richard Heton, one of the Sewers of the Chamber to Queen Henrietta, and at the time manager of the Salisbury Court Playhouse.

In September, 1639, he wrote out a doc.u.ment ent.i.tled "Instructions for my Patent," in which he advanced reasons why he should receive the sole power to elect the members of the Queen's Company of Players. He observes that under the existing arrangement the company was free to leave the Salisbury Court Playhouse at their pleasure, "as in one year and a half of their being here they have many times threatened"; and he concludes by adding: "and one now of the chief fellows [i.e., sharers of the company], an agent for one [William Davenant] that hath got a grant from the King for the building of a new playhouse which was intended to be in Fleet Street, which no man can judge that a fellow of our Company, and a well-wisher to those that own the house, would ever be an actor in."[716] Doubtless the owners of other houses had the same sentiments, and exercised what influence they possessed against the scheme. But the most serious opposition in all probability came from the citizens and merchants living in the neighborhood. We know how bitterly they complained about the coaches that brought playgoers to the small Blackfriars Theatre, and how strenuously from year to year they sought the expulsion of the King's Men from the precinct.[717] They certainly would not have regarded with complacency the erection in their midst of a still larger theatre.

[Footnote 716: Cunningham, _The Whitefriars Theatre_, in _The Shakespeare Society's Papers_, IV, 96.]

[Footnote 717: See the chapter on the Second Blackfriars.]

Whatever the opposition, it was so powerful that on October 2 Davenant was compelled to make an indenture by which he virtually renounced[718] for himself and his heirs for ever the right to build a theatre in Fleet Street, or in any other place "in or near the cities, or suburbs of the cities, of London or Westminster," without further and special permission granted. This doc.u.ment, first printed by Chalmers in his _Supplemental Apology_, is as follows:

This indenture made the second day of October, in the fifteenth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord Charles, by the grace of G.o.d, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, &c. _Anno Domini_ 1639.

Between the said King's most excellent Majesty of the first part, and William Davenant of London, Gent., of the other part. Whereas the said King's most excellent Majesty, by His Highness's letters patents under the Great Seal of England bearing date the six and twentieth day of March last past before the date of these presents, did give and grant unto the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators, and a.s.signs full power, license, and authority that he, they, and every of them, by him and themselves and by all and every such person or persons as he or they shall depute or appoint, and his and their laborers, servants, and workmen, shall and may lawfully, quietly, and peaceably frame, erect, new build, and set up upon a parcel of ground lying near unto or behind the Three Kings Ordinary in Fleet Street in the Parish of St. Dunstan's in the West, London, or in St. Bride's London, or in either of them, or in any other ground in or about that place, or in the whole street aforesaid, already allotted to him for that use, or in any other place that is or hereafter shall be a.s.signed and allotted out to the said William Davenant by the Right Honorable Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, Earl Marshall of England, or any other His Majesty's Commissioners for Building, for the time being in that behalf, a theatre or playhouse with necessary tiring and retiring rooms and other places convenient, containing in the whole forty yards square at the most, wherein plays, musical entertainments, scenes, or other the like presentments may be presented by and under certain provisors or conditions in the same contained, as in and by the said letters patents, whereunto relation being had more fully and at large, it doth and may appear.

Now this indenture witnesseth, and the said William Davenant doth by these presents declare, His Majesty's intent, meaning at and upon the granting of the said license was and is that he, the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators nor a.s.signs should not frame, build, or set up the said theatre or playhouse in any place inconvenient, and that the said parcel of ground lying near unto or behind the Three Kings Ordinary in Fleet Street in the said Parish of St. Dunstan's in the West, London, or in St. Bride's, London, or in either of them, or in any other ground in or about that place, or in the whole street aforesaid, and is sithence found inconvenient and unfit for that purpose, therefore the said William Davenant doth for himself his heirs, executors, administrators, and a.s.signs, and every of them, covenant, promise, and agree to and with our said Sovereign Lord the King, his heirs and successors, that he, the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators, nor a.s.signs shall not, nor will not, by virtue of the said license and authority to him granted as aforesaid, frame, erect, new build, or set up upon the said parcel of ground in Fleet Street aforesaid, or in any other part of Fleet Street, a theatre or playhouse, nor will not frame, erect, new build, or set up upon any other parcel of ground lying in or near the cities, or suburbs of the cities, of London or Westminster any theatre or playhouse, unless the said place shall be first approved and allowed by warrant under His Majesty's sign manual, or by writing under the hand and seal of the said Right Honorable Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey. In witness whereof to the one part of this indenture the said William Davenant hath set his hand and seal the day and year first above written.

WILLIAM DAVENANT. L.S.

Signed sealed and delivered in the presence of Edw. Penruddoks.

Michael Baker.

[Footnote 718: That he did not actually surrender the patent is shown by the fact that he claimed privileges by virtue of it after the Restoration; see Halliwell-Phillipps, _A Collection of Ancient Doc.u.ments_, p. 48.]

Possibly as a recompense for this surrender of his rights, Davenant was made Governor of the King's and Queen's Servants at the c.o.c.kpit in June of the following year; and from this time until the suppression of acting in 1642, he expended his energies in managing the affairs of this important playhouse.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[In the following list are included the books and articles const.i.tuting the main authorities upon which the present study is based. The list is not intended to be an exhaustive bibliography, though from the nature of the case it is fairly complete. For the guidance of scholars the more important t.i.tles are marked with asterisks. It will be seen that not all the works are included which are cited in the text, or referred to in footnotes; the list, in fact, is strictly confined to works bearing upon the history of the pre-Restoration playhouses. Considerations of s.p.a.ce have led to the omission of a large number of books dealing with the topography of London, and of the counties of Middles.e.x and Surrey, although a knowledge of these is essential to any thorough study of the playhouses. Furthermore, t.i.tles of contemporary plays, pamphlets, and treatises are excluded, except a few of unusual and general value.

Finally, discussions of the structure of the early stage, of the manner of dramatic performances in the time of Shakespeare, and of the travels of English actors on the Continent are omitted, except when these contain also material important for the study of the theatres.

At the close is appended a select list of early maps and views of London.]

[Transcriber's Note: In the original book, the numbers of the entries below are at the end of the entry at the right margin, preceded by a single square bracket. For the sake of clarity, in this e-book the entries below are numbered at the left margin without the bracket.]

*1. _Actors Remonstrance, or Complaint for the Silencing of their Profession._ London, 1643. (Reprinted in W.C. Hazlitt's _The English Drama and Stage_, and in E.W. Ashbee's _Facsimile Reprints_.)

*2. ADAMS, J.Q. The Conventual Buildings of Blackfriars, London, and the Playhouses Constructed Therein. (The University of North Carolina _Studies in Philology_, XIV, 64.)

3. ---- The Four Pictorial Representations of the Elizabethan Stage.

_(The Journal of English and Germanic Philology_, X, 329.)

*4. ---- _The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels 1623-1673._ New Haven, 1917.

5. ---- Lordinge (_alias_ "Lodowick") Barry. (_Modern Philology_, IX, 567. See No. 189.)

6. ALBRECHT, H.A. _Das englische Kindertheater._ Halle, 1883.

7. ARCHER, T. _The Highway of Letters._ London, 1893. (Chap. XV, "Whitefriars and the Playhouses.")

8. ARCHER, W. The Fortune Theatre. (The London _Tribune_, October 12, 1907; reprinted in _New Shakespeariana_, October, 1908, and in the Shakespeare _Jahrbuch_, XLIV, 159. See also Nos. 8, 38, 61, 129.)

9. ---- A Sixteenth Century Playhouse. (_The Universal Review_, June, 1888, p. 281. Deals with the De Witt drawing of the Swan.)

10. ARONSTEIN, P. Die Organisation des englischen Schauspiels im Zeitalter Shakespeares. (_Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift_, II, 165, 216.)

11. AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM. Cunningham's Extracts from the Revels' Books.

(_The Athenaeum_, 1911, II, 101, 130, 421; 1912, I, 469, 654; II, 143.

See Nos. 80, 179, 180, 183.)

12. BAKER, G.P. The Children of Powles. (_The Harvard Monthly_, May, 1891.)

13. ---- _The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist._ New York, 1907.

14. BAKER, H.B. _History of the London Stage and its Famous Players._ London and New York, 1904. (A new and rewritten edition of _The London Stage_. 2 vols. London, 1889.)

15. ---- _Our Old Actors._ 2 vols. London, 1881. (There was an earlier edition, London, 1878, printed in New York, 1879, with the t.i.tle, _English Actors from Shakespeare to Macready_.)

16. BAPST, C.G. _Essai sur l'Histoire du Theatre._ Paris, 1893.

17. BARRETT, C.R.B. _The History of the Society of Apothecaries of London._ London, 1905.

BEAR GARDEN AND HOPE. See Nos. 27, 72, 99, 119, 143, 144, 147, 152, 157, 198, 221, 222, 223, 228, 236, 238, 239, 240, 241, 274, 281, 303, 304, 316.

*18. BELL, H. Contributions to the History of the English Playhouse.

(_The Architectural Record_, March and April, 1913.)

19. BELL, W.G. _Fleet Street in Seven Centuries._ London, 1912. (Chap.

XIV, "The Whitefriars Playhouses.")

20. BESANT, SIR W. _Mediaeval London._ _London in the Time of the Tudors._ _London in the Time of the Stuarts._ 4 vols. London, 1903-06.

21. BINZ, G. Deutsche Besucher im Shakespeare'schen London. (_Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung._ Munchen, August, 1902.)

22. ---- Londoner Theater und Schauspiele im Jahre 1599. (_Anglia_, XXII, 456.)

*23. BIRCH, T. AND R.F. WILLIAMS. _The Court and Times of James the First._ 2 vols. London, 1849.

BLACKFRIARS, FIRST AND SECOND. See Nos. 2, 6, 17, 20, 26, 34, 41, 42, 43, 59, 61, 72, 90, 97, 100, 101, 105, 106, 108, 119, 136, 137, 146, 150, 163, 178, 179, 191, 196, 201, 214, 218, 223, 244, 248, 287, 288, 289, 293, 296, 297, 298.

24. BLANCH, W.H. _Dulwich College and Edward Alleyn._ London, 1877.

25. BOLINGBROKE, L.G. Pre-Elizabethan Plays and Players in Norfolk.

(_Norfolk Archaeology_, XI, 336.)

26. BOND, R.W. _The Complete Works of John Lyly._ 3 vols. Oxford, 1902.

27. BOULTON, W.B. _The Amus.e.m.e.nts of Old London._ 2 vols. London, 1901.