Chapter XXX: Sixteenth Century Women Students 295 (7)

But Hunnis now disappears from _historical_ notes. Whether he appealed to any rights on technical points; whether he owed his life to his being arraigned as “Thomas,” instead of “William,” or to the unusually difficult writing of the clerk who took down his depositions; whether his youth, beauty, popularity, talents, or frank confessions moved the hearts of his judges; or whether he was _remanded_ through the interest of his old master the Earl of Pembroke, I know not. He may have been forgotten as being too _insignificant_. For two years he languished, neglected in the Tower, only to be delivered on the death of Mary. He may have been released _shortly_ before that date through influence. That the terrors and discomforts of prison life had entered into his soul, that fears of rack and execution had aged his youth, we can see from two sets of verses in “The Paradise of Dainty devices” (ed. 1596), “Being asked the occasion of his white head,” No. 4 and No. 93. In the latter, in feeble verse, and many incomprehensible phrases, he certainly gives a chapter from his life’s experience, and asserts his belief in the righteousness of his cause and in the reward of his faith in God.

(93) Being in trouble he writeth thus.

In terrours trap with thraldome thrust,
Their thorny thoughts to taste and trie;
in conscience cleare from cause uniust,
With carping teares did call and crye,
and saide O God yet thou art he,
that can and will deliver me. Bis.

Thus trembling there with teares I trod,
To totter tide in truthes defence;
With sighes and sobs, I said O God,
Let right not haue this recompense.
Least that my foes might laugh to see.
That thou wouldst not deliver me. Bis.

My soule then to repentance ranne,
My ragged clothes all rent and torne;
and did bewaile the losse it wanne,
With loathsome life, so long forlorne,
and saide O God yet thou art he
that can and will deliuer me. Bis.

Then comfort came with clothes of ioy,
whose seames were faithfull stedfastnes;
and did bedeck the naked boy,
that earst was full of wretchednesse.
and said be glad for God is he.
That shortly will deliuer thee. Bis.

Finis. W. HUNNIS.

Whether the whole period between March 1556 and the accession of Elizabeth was spent by William Hunnis in the Tower or not, we are certain he would be freed at once by the new queen, “his sweet Lady Elizabeth,” and restored to his “living” as gentleman of the chapel (if he ever had been formally deprived of it). Early in the new reign he passed through great personal sorrow, as well as joys. His friend Nicholas Brigham did not survive his Queen long. And his widow, having lost her only child Rachel before the death of her husband, married William Hunnis. His predecessor William Crane in the office of Master of the Children of the Chapel was a married man. Until I learned the fact, I had not thought the laws, or at least the customs of the time, would have permitted this. And the marriage of Hunnis was also surprising, especially in connection with the gossip of Dethicke, which implied undue familiarity between Hunnis and Brigham’s wife. Nevertheless the testimony is irrefragable. On 2nd June 1559, “Margaret Hunnis, alias Brigham, alias Wariner, wyfe of William Hunnys, gentleman of the Queene’s Majesties Chappell,” made her testament nuncupative, in which, by consent of her husband, she left to her “Cousin Francis Brigham all that her tenemente and mansion house lyinge and beyinge at Westminster, commonly cawled ‘The Allmes House,’”[44] founded by Henry VII, and sold by Vincent to Brigham in 34 Hen. VIII. All her other goods, movable and immovable, she left to her husband, William Hunnis, whom also she named her executor. This testament was proved by Thomas Willot for William Hunnis, 12th October 1559. Her will in Somerset House is strangely involved with that of her husband, and clears up much.

Chalmers’ “Biographies” and Wood’s “Athenæ Oxonienses” say that “Nicholas Brigham died in his prime in December, 1559, at Westminster, leaving some MSS.: (1) ‘De Venationibus Rerum Memorabilium,’ a collection of notices of characters and events of which Bale has made much use; (2) ‘Memoirs,’ in the form of a diary in twelve books; and (3) ‘Miscellaneous Poems.’ None of these is probably in existence.” Wood thinks he was buried near Chaucer, whose tomb he had restored in 1556. But he is in error in the date; he died in 1558, leaving, by a verbal will, everything to his wife. She was granted powers of administration 20th February 1558-9, and at least before the following June, Hunnis had married Brigham’s widow. The entry among the wills, December 1559, is an objection to William Hunnis succeeding his wife, widow of Nicholas Brigham. Considerable litigation ensued in consequence of her bequests.

The young widower had, however, consoled himself within two years by marrying again. This time it was Mrs. Blancke of the Grocers’ Company; through her right Hunnis became a member of the Grocers’ Company, being admitted as redempcioner on 11th November 1560. Having found from the Guildhall records that he was a “Citizen and Grocer” of London, I made application to the Grocers’ Company, and was allowed to search their books, where I found many details unknown before. The authority of Mr. Kingdon corroborated that evidence. On 9th May 1567, he was formally admitted to the “Livery and Clothing” of the company, the fourth among a list of eighteen citizens. He duly paid his brotherhood money, two shillings. In the year 1570 his name was entered among the group of those “dwelling at Westminster and extravagant”; and he paid four shillings for the brotherhood money for the last two years, and two shillings towards defraying the expenses of the election feast. His marriage would be all the more important to him financially as he had, with other of her subjects, to wait some time before any practical recognition of his services was rendered him by Queen Elizabeth, beyond those connected with his living. The first that I have found recorded is a patent in June, the fourth year of Elizabeth, to the office of supervisor and custodian of the orchards and gardens at Greenwich, called the “great gardyne” and the “new gardyne,” to hold during his life with a salary of 12_d._ a day and various perquisites.[45] One duty was to present the Queen with seven gallons of “sweet water” a year. I am aware that Cunningham, in his notes to his edition of the “Revels Book,” asserts that this is another William Hunnis; but he had not made a thorough search, or he would have found it expressly stated that the grant was to “William Hunnis of the Chapell.” This, therefore, connects him with various payments made “to the supervisor of the gardens” for “men gardeners and women weeders at Greenwich”; and also with the famous account for seventy-nine bushels of roses and many bushels of other flowers in June of the 14th Elizabeth, “in preparation of the Banketing Howse made at White Hall for the entertainment of the said Duke.” Not only were there to be wreaths and adornments of flowers, but the floor was to be strewn with “rose-leaves pickt, and sweetened with sweet waters,” under the supervision of Hunnis. One suggestive point in connection with this patent of supervisor I have not yet worked out; but I may mention that his predecessor in office was one Philip Innes, whom Edward VI, in the fourth year of his reign, appointed for life to this post.[46] But in 1562 the said Philip Innes appears before Elizabeth and “renders up his office in favour of one William Hunnys,” and his patent is then cancelled. The new patent is at the side named “the patent of Philip Innes alias Hunnys,” and this is scratched out, and below is written fair “the patent of William Hunnys.” Is it possible that this Innes was his father, and that he had been brought up as a “gardener’s son”? Had he improved his name into Hinnes, in which form it appears oftener than in any other? I cannot yet say more than that the point is worth noting. In the first year of Mary there was another of the name, a John Innes, of Westminster, appointed to receive the “first almsmans room in the cathedral church of Westminster.”

Elizabeth often liked to pay her debts at the expense of other people. It was through a second grant of hers that I discovered Hunnis as a “citizen and grocer of the city of London.” In relation to the entry in Guildhall, which states in the Records, 30th May 1570, that a “reversion of the office of collection of the cities rightes, duties, and profittes, cominge and growinge uppon London Bridge, for wheelage and passage” was granted “to William Hunnys, citizen and grocer, and also master of Hir grace’s children of hir Chappell Royal,” upon letters of her Majesty in his favour.[47]

Various difficulties had arisen from the fact that the acting collectors had been promised that they should retain the post, not only for the twenty-one years for which they held a patent, but for the term of their natural lives and the life of the survivor, so it was agreed that the bridge-master should pay to Mr. Hunnis, in gratification of the Queen’s letters, the sum of £40 for a lease in reversion of the wheelage and passage of London Bridge.

Whether this £40 was in lieu of the reversion, or only as a _douceur_ for the time likely to elapse before the reversion should fall in, is not clear from the passage, and I have not yet been able to work it out. With his various expenses among the boys of the Chapel this £40 would not last long.

I do not now notice his poems, because I have only acquired any knowledge regarding them from printed material. But it is evident his poems read differently when connected with the events of his life. For instance, the opening device at the Kenilworth[48] festivities in 1575, when Sybilla prophesies good things to Elizabeth, comes gracefully from one who had conscientiously plotted to make her queen two years earlier than she became so--probably the only _poet_ of that conspiracy then surviving. The _rewards_ for his plays can be found among the declared accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber, and his death is noted in 1597 in “the Cheque Book of the Chapel Royal.”

By the favour of Elizabeth, on the death of Richard Edwards, Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal, on the 31st of October 1566, William Hunnis was appointed in his place on the 15th of November. But Elizabeth proved in his case not a “liberall dame,” as his perquisites, or rather his provisions, were materially curtailed, at the same time that the prices of food had much increased. This he very clearly explains in an interesting petition presented to the Council in November 1583,[49] where he states that he had to keep not only an usher, but a man-servant, to wait on the boys, and a woman-servant to keep them clean, on an income of 6_d._ a day each for their food, and £40 a year for their apparel and all other expenses, nothing being allowed for travelling and lodging when the Court required him to carry the boys with him to various places. On an examination of his demands, they appear both just and moderate. We do not wonder that he left no will, unless the verses written on the fly-leaf of Sir Thomas More’s works really represented one:[50]

To God my soul I doe bequeathe, because it is his owen,
My body to be layd in grave, where to my friends best knowen,
Executors I wyll none make, thereby great stryffe may growe,
Because ye goods that I shall leave wyll not pay all I owe.

W. HUNNYS.

But this will has been previously noted by Warton, and I only now allude to it in connection with others that are original.

I know it is possible that some may object that the William whose name I find spelt in seventeen different ways is not the same as the “Thomas Hinnewes” tried for his life at Guildhall. But the connecting links are strong.

This laxity of orthography made me look up all resembling names in wills, inquisitions, etc, about the period, to find a pedigree for him, but without success as yet. I have not found the name “Hunnis” appear before his time, and since then only twice; the first being a Thomas Hunnis, who died in 1626, and might very well have been his son; the other a “Marchadine Hunnys, of Berks, Plebs; a Demy of Magdalene College, Oxford, 1605; M.A. 1610.” This may give a clue to the local origin of the name, but the Marchadine “Plebs” could not have been son of William, as he was always entered “gentleman,” and had a coat of arms granted him in 1568 different from that printed by the College of Heralds (Ash. MS. Bodleian Library).

My original materials have been collected from the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, the Public Record Office, the Guildhall Record Office, the books of the Grocers’ Company, and from Somerset House. Only want of space prevents my giving references in full. I sincerely hope, however, that I may have an opportunity of publishing ere long the whole series of papers which I have _in extenso_, as an addition to the known history of the poet.

_“Athenæum,” 21st February and 21st March 1891._

PS.--This first paper ever printed on Hunnis came out in time for the D. N. B. In that same year I had all the patents concerning William Hunnis translated for me, in order to be exact (I still have the dated bill for the transaction) in preparation for a Paper which I read before The New Shakespeare Society in April 1892. Dr. Furnivall allowed me extra time to read it because my materials were new. Shortly after I completed my book entitled “William Hunnis and the Revels of the Chapel Royal,” which I could not afford to publish, and laid on the shelf for ten years till Dr. Furnivall recommended it to Professor Bang for the Louvain Series of “Materials for the History of the English Drama.” It was sent to him in 1904, but, by a special stroke of bad luck, was not published until 1910. The only point I had not secured was found by Professor Feuillerat too late to be included; as he only published it on 22nd December 1911 in the “Daily Chronicle.”

This gave the important story of the association of Hunnis and Farrant with the early venture of the Blackfriars private theatre in 1576. I had long sought for it; had, indeed, applied for a ticket for the Loseley Manuscripts on purpose in 1906, but, as the late owner was abroad in search of health, my search was postponed. A friend of the family assured me that there was nothing among the papers on William Hunnis, but very much about the Earl of Southampton, so I _thought_ that I could afford to wait. My only real regret, however, was that Professor Feuillerat should not have published his find earlier, to allow me to borrow it (with acknowledgement), to complete the life of the writer, of whom the reviewer in the “Times” in 1910 said, “Mrs. Stopes has made a _man_ of him.”

Unfortunately the Louvain Series is produced at such an expensive rate that it finds comparatively few English purchasers. Some of my new facts have appeared _since_ in Professor Wallace’s “Evolution of the English Drama.”

FOOTNOTES:

[42] See Art. XXV.

[43] Q.R.M. 924.17. Tower Records, 2 and 3 Ph. and Mary. P.R.O.

[44] See “Henry Seventh’s Almshouse,” “Athenæum,” 30th December 1905.

[45] Aud. Pat. Books, 4 Eliz., vol. ix, 85_b_.

[46] _Ibid._, 4 Edw. VI, vol. iii, f. 40.

[47] See Letter-Books, v, f. 292-294.

[48] See “George Gascoigne’s brief rehearsal of as much as was presented before her Majestie at Kenilworth during her last abode there, July, 1575,” printed 26th March 1576.

[49] State Papers Dom. Series. Eliz., clxiii, 88.

[50] The edition of 1557, in the Library of Trinity College, Oxford.

XVII

BURBAGE’S “THEATRE”

To few pioneers is it given to initiate, and also to develope into completeness, any great new form of national art. Chaucer was not our first poet, Shakespeare was not our first dramatist. Our first architect, our first musician, our first painter, would be hard to find. But we know where to look for our “first builder of playhouses.”

A remarkable man he must have been, strong of physique, intellect and courage, strenuous, many-sided, imaginative, far-seeing, irrepressible. A special strain of genius must have prepared him to face difficulties thrown in his way during the development of his great Idea.

In all our discussions about the Shakespeare Memorial and the National Theatre, it would be well to remember what one man did towards that end 330 years ago.

James Burbage, the joiner by apprenticeship, the player by inspiration, the manager by sheer superiority, formed the best company of players of his day, and persuaded the greatest Earl of the kingdom to secure him the first Royal Patent to players, a patent which raised them from being “vagabonds” into artists. With a strategic skill worthy of a great commander, he circumvented the fettering edicts of the Common Council by carrying his company outside their jurisdiction, and, in seeming to obey the regulations against playing in inn-yards or in open spaces, reared for himself an edifice in which he could foster and develope the national drama, an edifice which he had the foresight to name “The Theatre.” The special and particular name he chose has become the generic name or patronymic of all its descendants. Within the wooden walls of his citadel, protected by doorkeepers, he had an opportunity, not only of earning money, but of educating the people, superintending at the same time a school of actors and a school of dramatists. To him came the honour of rearing a son whom he trained to be the greatest tragedian of his day; to him came the proud satisfaction of finding and training the provincial player who helped him to make his name; to him came the appreciative insight into the powers of this “fellow,” which led him to encourage Shakespeare to make use of his opportunities of patching and improving old plays until he could stand alone; to him came the crowning glory of seeing _his man_ become the greatest dramatist of his time. And all this was done in about twenty years! What actor-manager has ever done like unto him? And all that he did was achieved under the stress and strain of active opposition from many quarters; he was constantly being harassed by regulation, legislation, and litigation with rivals, relatives, and landlords, eager to share in the profits of his phenomenal financial success (which, however, through his heavy expenses must have been much less than they supposed it to be). He was a pioneer, but he had more than his fair share of fighting to do. The Curtain “rose like an exhalation” in his wake, and left no records in its train. His very popularity made his path more thorny.

It may be well to collect what little is known of him. Halliwell-Phillips, that industrious writer, discovered many points, but his reticence, or at least haziness, about references has prevented his successors from following him to his originals. He is generally correct in his transcripts, but not always so; his inferences are sometimes erroneous; he did not cover the whole possible field, so there are many fresh references to be brought forward, not, perhaps, of prime importance, but still important enough to help to complete “the idea of the life” of James Burbage.

We do not know when or where he was born or educated, what was the occupation of his father, or when he joined the Earl of Leicester’s servants. We do know that he was bred a joiner, and must have been a member of the company, as he is frequently described as a “joiner,” in his legal actions, even after one would have thought another description of him would have been more suitable. But any _citizen_ then, even in the lesser companies, was reckoned more respectable than a “_player_.” Think of his times. On 12th February 1563 Edward, Bishop of London, wrote to advise Sir William Cecil to inhibit all players, at least for a year, it would be well if it could be for ever. They spread the plague and profaned Holy things; “the Histriones, the common players,” are “an idle sort of people which have been infamous in all good commonwealths.” In 1572 Queen Elizabeth enacted the famous statute[51] that “Rogues, Vagabonds ... fencers, Bearwards, Common Players, and Minstrels not belonging to any baron of the Realm shall be judged Vagabonds,” and made liable to be whipped and sent to some respectable service. To satisfy the Queen’s private tastes, however, and their own, many barons helped the better class of players by enrolling them as their “servants,” and thus securing them some ill-defined privileges. But the City strongly disapproved of plays and players. On 2nd March 1573-4 the Lord Mayor declined to license a place in the City, even for the servants of the Earl of Sussex; on the 22nd the Privy Council asked the Lord Mayor what cause made him thus restrain plays. Dissatisfied with his reply, the Earl of Leicester, determined that his servants should not be put to such an indignity, secured the first _Royal Patent_ under the Privy Seal for them, which introduced James Burbage into the history of his country. As it gave him, on paper, a large liberty, and raised his craft to the level of an art, often as it has been printed, it is important to start with it in any history of the stage. One forgets sometimes. On 7th May 1574 the Royal Patent warned all officials to permit

to James Burbage, John Perkyn, John Laneham, William Johnson, Robert Wylson and others, servants to our trustie and well-beloved Cousin and Councillor, the Earl of Leicester, to use, exercise and occupie the art and facultie of playing Comedies, Tragedies, Interludes, Stage Plaies, and such other, like as they have already used and studied or hereafter shall use and study, as well as for the recreacion of our loving subjects as for our solace and pleasure when we shall think good to see them ... together with their musick ... as well within our City of London and the Liberties of the same, as also within the liberties and freedoms of any other cytyes, towns, boroughes, &c., whatsoever, throughout our realm of England; willing and commanding you and every of you, as ye tender our pleasure, to permit and suffer them therein without any your letts, hindrance or molestation, any act, statute, proclamation or commandment heretofore made, or hereafter to be made to the contrary notwithstanding. Provided that the same ... be allowed by our Master of the Revells, and that they be not published or shewen in the time of Common Prayer, or in the time of great and common plague in our said City of London.

Nothing could have been more explicit, or more exasperating to the Corporation of London, than this permission to contravene their mandates.[52] The Corporation’s counterblast was the famous Order of 6th December 1574. They threatened fine and imprisonment to any who “played without a licence from the City each time,” and without giving half the proceeds to the poor. They did not “tender the Queen’s pleasure” in respect to the players.[53]

At the close of 1574, on St. Stephen’s Day, the Earl of Leicester’s servants played before the Queen at Court, and opened the year by playing on New Year’s Day, 1574-5.

Other noblemen hastened to request Royal Patents for their servants. The battle between the Privy Council and the Common Council raged all the more hotly since the players had been “patented,” and the climax came when the Lord Mayor expelled all players from the City, under an undated “Order for the relief of the Poor” printed by Singleton.

Leicester’s servants played before the Queen on Innocent’s Day 1575, and again on the Sunday before Shrovetide. For the first time they were fully described in the warrants for payment granted by the Privy Council[54] and in the declared accounts of the Pipe Office[55] as “Burbage and his company, servants to the Earl of Leicester.” But even Leicester’s servants, with a Privy Seal Patent from the Queen, could not very well live all the year round on Christmas gifts. They must either go on tour, act in the City or near it, starve, or turn to another trade. Burbage did return awhile to his original trade. He had had a prevision of what was coming, had kept his eyes open, and had laid his plans, and found a “place where to stand.” A few months after the expulsion order, on 13th April 1576, he had signed and sealed an indenture of lease for a parcel of land of the disused monastery of Holywell, stretching from the barn and outhouses of the property of the Earl of Rutland to the brick wall that bounded Finsbury Fields. It belonged to Giles Alleyn, Arm., and his wife Sara, and contained a barn, some old tenements, gardens, fields, and some “voyd ground.” His plans necessitated engineering and financial skill, credit, and money. James Burbage had the first, but he was not rich. He had married, however, some time previous to this, Ellen Braynes, who had “expectations.” Halliwell-Phillips and all his followers say she was the _daughter_ of John Braynes. But he is in error; the language of some of the cases he knew might have taught him better. But a case which he evidently did not know states clearly that John Braynes was the only brother of Ellen Burbage. He was evidently, at the time, a childless husband, as in his lawsuits there is constant reference to the understanding that his sister’s children would inherit all he had, seeing he had none of his own. There was an inn upon Burbage’s leasehold, but players had been forbidden to play in inn-yards. He could not risk playing on his “voyd ground,” as his audience might melt away before they paid the costs, so he resolved to build a _playing-house_ in his fields. John Braynes, fired with the idea of making a speedy fortune, agreed to become a sharer in costs and profits, and each signed a bond to the other. Giles Alleyn signed the lease, knowing quite well it was to be for the players, but he did not mind much, as he himself was going henceforth to live in Essex. He also knew that Burbage was the “servant” of the Earl of Leicester, and it was not safe to disoblige that great noble, even through his servants. Alleyn was used to land-transfers and litigation, and he thought he made a safe bargain. He did not want to give a longer lease than twenty-one years until he saw how playing-houses were likely to do, but he permitted a clause that if, before the end of the first ten years, James Burbage had spent £200 in repairing or rebuilding the old tenements on the property, he could have another lease from that date of twenty-one years (making in all thirty-one years), and he could, at the end, carry away the materials of any building he had erected for himself.[56] Burbage was to pay the legal expenses of drawing up and the engrossing of this second lease. Of course, there was some preliminary “consideration,” but the rent seemed very moderate even for the time, for the extent of land leased at £14 by the year including the tenements inhabited by sub-tenants. Burbage, with Braynes’ help, set to work at once. It is probable he was his own architect, contractor, and master-builder, that he even used his own hands in the work, and pressed those of his “unemployed” company to hasten forward the edifice which promised so soon to help them in return. Wood does not necessitate so many difficulties or delays as stone and brick. It can be fetched from the country prepared, and even partially put together, as can be learned from one of Peter Street’s lawsuits.[57] As the building rose, it became its own advertisement. Finsbury Field was the City-ground for drill and archery, the people’s play-ground. From its boundary crowds watched the rising fabric, eager and impatient as the owners, and more curious. We may be quite sure that Burbage’s building was the main topic of London gossip during 1576. When, protected by walls, doors, and doorkeepers from impecunious prying eyes, it did open on some unrecorded day that year, of course there were disturbances. Everybody wanted to enter the charmed circle at once, to see the plays from which they had been so long debarred, and to understand Burbage’s little game. The humour of the situation tickled the fancy of the people; the taste of the forbidden tree was sweet to their palate; cutpurses saw their chance among the genuine play-lovers, and there was crowding, crushing, struggling for entry, quarrelling for places, shouting, and all signs of a brawl. Free fights ensued, and “The Theatre,” from the very first, through no fault of its owner, became associated with breaches of the peace, which its enemies made the most of. In the following year it came into history by name. On 1st August 1577 the Privy Council, moved by the City, for fear of the plague, wrote to the Middlesex authorities to take order with “such as use to play without the Liberties ... as at the Theatre and such like,” to forbear playing till after Michaelmas.[58] A sermon preached at Paul’s Cross in the time of the plague, 3rd November 1577, by T. W. (printed 1578) refers to “the sumptuous Theatre houses, a constant monument of London’s prodigalitie and folly.”[59] John Northbrook’s “Book against dicing, vaine playes, or enterludes,” entered in Stationers’ Hall, 2nd December 1577, refers to “the Theatre and the Curtain.” The Earl of Leicester’s players however played at Court that Christmas, but again on 17th April 1578 the Privy Council wrote the Middlesex authorities to restrain players till after Michaelmas. John Stockwood, Schoolmaster of Tunbridge, preached a sermon at Paul’s Cross on 24th August of that year, in which the Theatre and Curtain are both referred to by name, and again he refers to “the gorgeous Playing place erected in the fields, as they please to have it called, a Theatre.”[60] On 24th December 1578 the Earl of Leicester’s servants had a licence to play in the City, because they were going to play before the Queen at Christmas. They played on St. Stephen’s Day, but on Shrove Tuesday they were paid in full for coming, though the play, by her Majesty’s command, was supplied by others.[61] This was probably the sign of a tiff with Leicester.

Burbage’s promptness, sumptuousness, and success could not be attained without lavish outlay of money, more than he had himself or that his brother-in-law could command. Apparently he found it through John Hyde, grocer, though no record of the transaction has been preserved otherwise than the fact that Hyde held the house in pawn from 17th September 1579 till 7th June 1589, during which time Burbage remained legal and ostensible owner. At the latter date it was restored, but to Cuthbert, not to James Burbage. Against the dangers of debt and public interference he still bravely fought, but even in “The Liberty of Holywell” troubles assailed him. Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson, in editing the Middlesex County Records for James I, found among them a few entries of Elizabeth’s reign, and among these is the record of the presentation at Clerkenwell Sessions of John Braynes of Shoreditch yeoman, and James Burbage of the same, yeoman, 21st February 22 Eliz.,[62] on the charge of

“bringing together unlawful assemblies to hear and to see certain colloquies or interludes called playes or interludes exercised and practised by the same John Braynes and James Burbage, and divers other persons unknown at a certain place called The Theatre at Holywell in the county of Middlesex, by reason of which great affrays, assaults, tumults and quasi-insurrections and divers other misdeeds and enormities ... perpetrated to the danger of the lives of divers good subjects ... against the form of the Statute,” etc.

This shows that Braynes, though not mentioned in the original patent, had become one of Burbage’s players. But it hardly supports Mr. Jeaffreson’s contention that he must have been the _chief_ player and proprietor of The Theatre. Braynes might very well have been placed first as being the elder, and apparently the richer, of the two, and they might have agreed to put Braynes forward as the chief, so as to bear the brunt of the examination, while Burbage was looking after his plays, his house, his rehearsals, and his audience. Braynes was a business man, quite able to face an attorney and a magistrate, but he was second fiddle at The Theatre.

It is curious to remember that the great earthquake took place about six weeks later, 6th April 1580. Enemies read in it a token of God’s wrath against The Theatre. Ballads were written to bid men haste away from the play because of the earthquake.[63] But we have no record of any damage at The Theatre, or to Burbage’s house in Holywell Street, though many chimneys fell in more respectable places.[64]

The Lord Mayor wrote to the Lords of the Council,[65] “Where it happened on Sunday last that some great disorder was committed at the Theatre, I sent for the Undersherive ... and for the players to have appeared before me, the rather because these playes doe make assemblies of citizens and of their families of whom I have charge,” but hearing the Council was considering the matter he “surceased to proceed,” but thought it his duty to remind them “that the players of playes which are used at the Theatre, and other such places ... are a very superfluous sort of men, and of suche facultie as the lawes have disalowed.” An order of the Privy Council was issued to forbid all plays in and about the City till Michaelmas next, 13th May 1580. Five months’ forced “unemployment,” with his rent, his interest running on, his creditors clamouring, his housekeeper asking for food, and his company doubtless worrying him for money. His was the fate of Tantalus, for the golden stream was ever at his lips. The constant interference with the players only increased the eagerness of the populace to see them. Battles with courtiers, preachers, citizens, authors, raged round Burbage’s head. But he played at Court that Christmas as usual. In 1583 the Queen, to keep up with her nobles, resolved to patent a Royal Company of her own, and exercising her prerogative of “taking up,” not only singing boys, but any[66] “men” she needed for her service, she took the pick of the players from all the companies, among them Robert Wilson and Richard Tarleton. This did not really hurt them much, as they remained on friendly terms, and often played with their old companies. The Queen’s players had their first performances at Court, with but few others, during the Christmas of 1583-4.

In 1584 Fleetwood wrote to Lord Burleigh that the Lord Mayor desired to suppress all playhouses, and had sent for the players themselves to come to him, among them the Queen’s players and Lord Arundel’s players. “They all well nighe obeyed the Lordes letters: the chiefest of her Higheness’s players advised me to send for the owner of The Theatre, who was a stubborne fellow, and to bind him: I did so. He sent me word that he was my Lord of Hunsdon’s man, and that he would not comme at me, but he would in the morning ride to his Lord. I sent the Under-Sheriff for him but he would not be bound.”[67] This has been supposed not to refer to Burbage, because he said he was Lord Hunsdon’s man. But there was no one else who could be called _owner_ of The Theatre, no one so resourceful and so daring. He was any Lord’s man, so that it was not the Lord Mayor’s, and, seeing what the Earl of Leicester was about, he was off to Court, to ask his Lord what his Royal Patent meant when a mere Lord Mayor could flout it so. After that his Company became Lord Hunsdon’s (then the Lord Chamberlain) till the Queen’s death. That danger passed.

Before April 1586 Burbage had the proposed new lease of his property drawn up to add ten years after the expiration of the first lease, but Giles Allen refused to sign it. He denied that the £200, as agreed, had really been spent on the repair of the old tenements; he said there were alterations from the old lease, though Burbage explained that the difference only lay in not including a clause and condition for further extension of lease. Alleyn showed a shifty desire to juggle with the 1576 agreement, and, having an exaggerated idea of the net profits realized by Burbage, he wanted to raise the rent from £14 to £24; and while granting the ten years’ extra lease of the soil, he wanted to restrict the further use of The Theatre as a playing place to a term of _five_ more years, after which it might be used for _some other purpose_ by Burbage. It was clear that Burbage was not going to sign a lease at the raised rent without having the use of his theatre during the full term, so the two second leases lay in abeyance, and landlord and tenant spent the remaining eleven years of the first lease suspicious of each other, and watching every turn of events.

In 1586 a new set of troubles arose through the death of John Braynes, who, apparently by the influence of his wife Margaret and the pressure of circumstances, had not remained quite as brotherly as he had formerly been. Through fear of being called on to pay theatre debts, he had made a deed of gift of his goods and chattels to Robert Myles, goldsmith, to one Tomson, and also to John Gardiner. Margaret Braynes, widow, had herself a suit against Robert Myles, and in Easter 1587,[68] “a week is granted him to make answer, or an attachment will be granted.” By this time John Gardiner had died, and his administrator, Robert Gardiner, claimed to be executor of Braynes in his place. The widow, Myles, and Gardiner united to worry Burbage. They refused to consider the notion that Braynes meant his investment in building The Theatre to come eventually to his nephews, or that through his breach of agreement he had forfeited his bond, and they made themselves very harassing.

Halliwell-Phillipps, and all the writers who follow him, say the first action was taken in the Chancery suit of Braynes _v._ Burbage, 1590. But it began long before that. He had never seen the earlier suit of Burbage _v._ Braynes,[69] nor followed its various stages through Chancery. I am not able to give the exact date of this first action, as the document is very much injured, but I _believe_ it is 1588. The plaintiffs are James Burbage, Ellen his wife, and Cuthbert, Richard, Alice, and Ellen their children _v._ Margaret Braynes. This explains how James had taken the land from Giles Alleyn, and how his brother-in-law had agreed to go shares with him in The Theatre and the George Inn. There had been an arbitration between them which had been in favour of Burbage, on 12th July 1578, and Braynes had forfeited a bond of £200 through not obeying the arbitration. Braynes had conveyed his goods and chattels to Myles, to Tomson, and to John Gardiner, and had ceased to pay his share of expenses. But shortly before his death he confessed that his moietie should all remain to Burbage’s children. The defendants claimed the same, only under an old will made before the conveyances and against the arbitration. Robert Myles “enters The Theatre and troubles your orator, and his tenants,” and Robert Gardiner, the administrator of John Gardiner, who died in 1587, “goes about to sue James Burbage in two several bonds,” and “by reason of the multiplicity of their conveyances they joyn together to imprison your said orator, to enforce him to yield to their request.” They will not pay the £200 bond forfeited by Braynes; their action is costly, and leads to his impoverishment. He prays relief, and a subpœna to the defendants to appear personally and answer material facts, and he is willing to submit to justice. Their answer is, of course, that his is an untrue and insufficient bill. I suppose this is the case referred to in the Decree[70] that the defendants have put in an insufficient demurrer. It was referred to Mr. Dr. Carew, and if he thought it insufficient, a subpœna to be awarded against the defendants. Margaret Braynes, Myles, and Gardiner had meanwhile brought a cross-suit against the Burbages; and in that, on 21st May 1590,[71] the court was informed that the defendants put in an insufficient demurrer, and it also is referred to Mr. Dr. Carew for the same purpose. This came up again in the Trinity term,[72] and on 4th November Mrs. Braynes appeals again, through Mr. Scott,[73] for the moietie of The Theatre and other tenements; the defendants have put in an ill demurrer, and take the whole gains and benefits of the premises, albeit she and her husband had been at very great charges in the building of The Theatre, to the sum of £500, and did for a time enjoy the moietie. It is ordered that if the defendants do not show good cause, sequestration of the moietie shall be granted. On 13th November[74] Mr. Serjeant Harrys, for Burbage, prayed consideration of a former order made in his behalf in the suit of Burbage _v._ Braynes. There had been an arbitrament made on 12th July 1578, in favour of Burbage, and neither of the parties showed why the arbitration should not be performed. Sequestration was stayed. This promised peace; but on 20th January 1590-1[75] Robert Myles made oath that the Burbages had broken an order made in court on 13th November; therefore an attachment was awarded for contempt. On 30th January[76] Cuthbert Burbage made his personal appearance to save his bond to the Sheriff of London, but nothing was done. On 23rd March[77] it was stated in court that the Burbages had been examined upon interrogatories, and these committed to the consideration of Mr. Dr. Cæsar. On 24th April 1591,[78] Burbage continued his case against Mrs. Braynes, she having put in an insufficient demurrer; consideration was referred to Mr. Dr. Carew. On 15th June,[79] as nothing material had been advanced on her side, Burbage asked for a subpœna against her and Myles. On 20th July[80] Margaret Braynes appeared in her own case against Cuthbert and James Burbage; they also appeared, but the Master in Charge could not attend. On 12th October 1591[81] it was decided that no advantage should be given until it was found whether Burbage had committed contempt of court; and on 13th November[82] it was heard again. It had been referred to Mr. Dr. Stanhop and Mr. Dr. Legg, who had heard counsel on both sides, but they could not well proceed to examine the parties before they examined John Hyde of London, grocer, Ralph Myles of London, “sopemaker,” Nicholas Bushop and John Allen upon the contempt pretended. The need of considering these witnesses arose in this way. Burbage, at some date, following his brother-in-law’s lead, had transferred all his property to his sons. Hyde, holding The Theatre for ten years, had released it to Cuthbert. To Robert Myles had been let the George Inn, part of the Holywell property; Myles had let the stables to his son, Ralph Myles, and Nicholas Bushop[83] for a soap manufactory.[84]

One is interested to know the inns at which Shakespeare might have “taken his ease.” Here is one, on the very Theatre ground. Was it in his thought when he wrote, in “King John,”

St. George, who swinged the Dragon, and ere since
Sits on his horseback at mine hostess’ door.

For by this time Burbage had got firm hold of Shakespeare. He was learning all round, _even law_ through the troubles of Burbage, helping all round, becoming a “Johannes Factotum ... a Shakescene able to bumbast out a blank verse as well as the best of you!” Was there a little bit of lively badinage of James Burbage when, in the play suggesting the Earl of Leicester and his Kenilworth festivities, “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” he cast, in the artisan’s play “Snug the _Joiner_,” for the Lion’s part?

The plague caused a lull in the Chancery proceedings, but they started again. Latterly Margaret Braynes died, but Robert Myles continued _versus_ Burbage and Burbage _versus_ Myles. The next best thing for him to a speedy settlement in his favour was delay. Time told for him. On 4th February 1595-6 James Burbage, “gent.,” purchased from Sir William More for £600 some rooms in the dissolved Monastery of Blackfriars,[85] also out of the jurisdiction of the City authorities. Throughout that year he urged on the alterations of the rooms into a winter theatre, that his brilliant son Richard might not be hindered in his performances by further troubles at The Theatre. By 16th November the inhabitants of the Blackfriars had sent up a petition against the starting of a playhouse there; a copy, undated, is preserved among the State papers.[86] But the date can be found in a later petition and order at the Guildhall, which implies that the first had been successful, at least for a time.[87] James Burbage, therefore, though the inventor and designer of the modern theatre in stone and brick as well as in wood, in the famous theatre afterwards called the private stage of Blackfriars, did not see his son Richard triumph there. Baffled in that, he “laboured with Giles Alleyn to sign the extended lease of Holywell drawn up in 1586, and got his friends also to move him.” Probably among these were the Earls of Southampton and Rutland, whose property bordered his ground.[88] Giles Alleyn was, however, unresponsive. Amid the anxious discussions with his sons concerning their critical future, I feel sure that James planned the manœuvre, which afterwards proved really successful. He thought that if he could but carry that out as he wished, he would be able to fight all his enemies at once, and give his beloved Theatre a new lease of life. But he was not so young as he had been, the strain of his strenuous work had told upon him, and sorrow for losses by death. Just a year after he had bought his Blackfriars property and just before the lease of his Theatre had run, the lease of his life ended; he died suddenly, and was buried in St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, 2nd February, 1596-7.

O! Brave James Burbage!

_“Fortnightly Review,” July 1909._

FOOTNOTES:

[51] 14 Eliz., c. 5.

[52] Lansdowne MS., XX, 10, 11, 12, 13.

[53] _Ibid._, IX, 18.

[54] Privy Council Register, 14th March 1575.

[55] Pipe Office. Dec. Acc. Treas. Chamb., No. 541.

[56] Court of Requests, Burbage _v._ Alleyn, 26th January 42 Eliz. 87/74.

[57] Court of Requests, 20th January 39 Eliz. 91/57.

[58] Privy Council Register of Date.

[59] See Harrison’s “England” (ed. Furnivall), vol. iv, p. 343.

[60] _Ibid._, p. 329.

[61] Pipe Office. Dec. Acc. Treas. Chamb., No. 541, f. 210.

[62] Middlesex County Records, vol. ii, xlvii.

[63]

“Come from the Plaie,
The House will fall so people saye
The Earth quakes lett us haste awaye.”

[64] Stow’s “Chronicles,” p. 686.

[65] 12th April 1580. See “Athenæum,” 12th February 1887.

[66] Rymer’s “Fœdera,” xl, 375.

[67] Lansdowne MS., 41, art. 13.

[68] As the Books begin in Michaelmas, they always seem a year too soon. Ch. Proc. D. and O., 1586-7, Braynes _v._ Myles, A. Book, 6th May 1587, 384.

[69] Chancery Proceedings, Series II, 222/85.

[70] Ch. Proc. D. and O. (A. Book, 454, 1588, 22nd February 1588-9.)

[71] _Ibid._, 1589, A. Book, 21st May 1590, 610.

[72] A. Book, 1590, 15.

[73] A. Book, 4th November 1590, 109.

[74] A. Book, 13th November 1590, 145.

[75] A. Book, 23rd January 1590-1, 270.

[76] A. Book, 30th January 1590-1, 317.

[77] A. Book, 23rd March 1590-1, 456.

[78] A. Book, 24th April 1591, 493.

[79] A. Book, 15th June 1591, 720.

[80] A. Book, 20th July 1591, 818.

[81] Decrees and Orders, A. Book, 12th October 1591, 16.

[82] A. Book, 13th November 1591, 151.

[83] Myles _v._ Bushop, Chan. Proc., 2nd Series, 245, 85.

[84] In the Nebraska University Studies, 1913, Professor Wallace states that _he told me_ of all these papers. He mistakes, or forgets. I had been engaged in this work for fifteen years before he came to the country, had them all, and was only checking them for type when one was being repaired at this date. The Uncalendared MSS. of the Court of Requests were not previously opened to students.

[85] See Manuscripts at Loseley, and the Appendix to 7th Rep. Roy. Com. Hist. Man., 653b.

[86] Dom. Ser. St. Pap. Eliz., cclx, 116.

[87] Repertory, 34a, 38b, 21st January 1618.

[88] Exchequer Bills and Answers, Eliz. 369. Many interesting details are of necessity crowded out, through lack of space.

XVIII

THE TRANSPORTATION OF BURBAGE’S “THEATRE”

The story of the dramatic transportation of “The Theatre” from the north to the south bank of the Thames is well known to every student of Shakespeare’s life. But Halliwell-Phillipps, who did so much to bring forward new facts concerning it, rarely gives his references, and, among the mass of material which must have passed through his hands, he neglected sufficiently to compare and collate different papers. Hence he did not complete the story of “The Theatre.”

James Burbage had died in February 1597, just before the conclusion of the twenty-one years’ lease granted by Giles Alleyn, who had been juggling with his promise to lengthen it by ten years, on the plea that the conditions had not been fulfilled. Burbage’s sons were already in possession (see my paper “Burbage’s Theatre,” “Fortnightly Review,” July 1909). Richard Burbage entered into negotiations with Henry Evans about a lease of the newly altered theatre at Blackfriars. The Privy Council, on 28th July 1597, had issued an order that the Theatre and the Curtain should be pulled down, or at least dismantled, so as to make them unfit for stage-playing. It was a hard saying, for it meant that all the money, energy, and ingenuity which had been put into the realization of Burbage’s great idea would be dissipated _without any compensation_, while imitations survived. Cuthbert Burbage, evidently hoping that he would find friends at Court to help him to weather the storm, as he had done before, renewed his entreaties to Alleyn to extend the lease. Alleyn temporized, but allowed him to continue on the old terms for the time. Probably he had no better offer on hand. The Lord Chamberlain’s company went on tour in the summer, when all companies were forbidden to act in the City until Allhallows-tide; but they were engaged to play at Court at Christmas as usual. The year 1598 was critical for them; it is uncertain whether they played at their own “Theatre” or not. Guilpin’s “Skialethia,” published that year, says:

But see yonder one
Who, like the unfrequented Theater,
Walkes in dark silence and vast solitude.

Shakespeare’s friend, the Earl of Southampton, had lost favour with the Queen through his marriage with Elizabeth Vernon. On the other hand, Shakespeare himself had been glorified by Francis Meres, Professor of Rhetoric in Oxford; and Richard Burbage had been generally recognized as the greatest genius on the stage. Hesitation ended when Cuthbert Burbage heard privately that his ground landlord meant to pull down his “Theatre,” ostensibly in obedience to the order of the Privy Council, but really that he might confiscate its materials to repay himself for the mortifications and losses that he fancied he had unjustly endured. Cuthbert looked at Southwark _over ye sea_, where already Henslowe had prospered in the Rose, and Langley in the Swan, and, secretly finding a site to the east of these, removed.