Shakespeare's environment

by C. C. Stopes

Giles Alleyn presented his voluminous “answer” on 6th February 1599-1600. He said, of course, that the complaint was untrue, and “exhibited of malice.” He went through the original lease, with a few glosses. He refused to sign the new lease because it was different from the original one; also because James Burbage had not spent the £200 in repairs, and there were arrears of rent. “He was a troublesome tenant. When he had tried to distrain for rent, either the doors and gates were kept shut, or there was nothing left to distraine.” He had offered to give Cuthbert a new lease, with good security and increased rent. He could well afford it, seeing he had made at least £2,000 by the Theatre. He had heard it had been built at the charges of John Braynes, whom James Burbage defrauded,[90] as Cuthbert now defrauded Robert Myles, his executor. It was manifestly illegal for Burbage to remove the Theatre.

Cuthbert’s “replication” is dated 27th April 1600. He said he could prove everything in his complaint, and denied all Alleyn’s charges. If his father delayed paying the rent, it was owing to the trouble and expense he had had in keeping the property against Edward Peckham, who disputed Alleyn’s right to it. He could bring the workmen’s bills to show that his father had spent the £200 in repairs. He himself had disbursed a large sum since. He had been quite willing to sign a fair lease such as his father drew up. The sole difference from the first lay in its containing no clause for the further extension of the lease. A Royal Commission was issued on 5th June to examine witnesses on interrogatories, the depositions to be returned by Michaelmas 1600. The depositions on behalf of Giles Alleyn were taken at Kelvedon, Essex, on 14th August. They were not very convincing. The depositions on behalf of Street and Burbage are not among the Calendared Proceedings of the Court of Requests, or we might have had some interesting names as well as facts. But they appear to have prevailed. No one seems to have found the decisions in any of the cases. But I have found from the Star Chamber case Alleyn’s statement, “Thereby I lost my suit.” This case, therefore, is the only one of the four which came to a conclusion. The 5th of June 1600, on which Alleyn’s witnesses were being examined, is in Trinity Term, and it was in this Trinity Term that Giles Alleyn sued Peter Street in the postponed action in the King’s Bench, regardless of the injunction from the Court of Requests, or the order that the answers were to be returned at Michaelmas, It is from this King’s Bench case (Coram Rege Roll, Trin. 42 Eliz. 587) that Halliwell-Phillipps selected his lengthy extracts. But the vital points are missed. The Court, “not being sufficiently informed of particulars,” postponed the hearing till Michaelmas, and it was never heard. Why? Because on 18th October 42 Eliz., the Privy Council decreed, through the Court of Requests, that Giles Alleyn and his attorneys should from thence surcease, and no further prosecute the action at common law for trespass, and should never commence any suit for the pulling down of the Theatre, and that Cuthbert Burbage should be at liberty to take his remedy at Common Law against Alleyn for not agreeing to seal the second lease. (See “The demurrer of Cuthbert Burbage, Richard Burbage, Peter Street, and William Smith to Giles Alleyn’s complaint” in the Star Chamber case, 23rd November, 44 Eliz., 1601, A. xii/35.)

In Hilary Term 43 Eliz., 1601, postponed till Easter, 44 Eliz., Alleyn sued a plea of broken agreement against Cuthbert Burbage in his own name (Coram Rege Roll, 1373, r. 255, Easter 44 Eliz.).

Then Giles Alleyn, still at white heat, brought the noteworthy, though hitherto unnoted, complaint in the Star Chamber, again defying legal etiquette and legal decision, 23rd November 44 Eliz., 1601. He recited the well-known indenture and conditions, and further blackened the character of the Burbages by saying that Braynes, not Burbage, had built the Theatre at the cost of 1,000 marks. (Mrs. Braynes herself only claimed to have contributed £500 for their moiety; see D. and O. Books, Chancery A., 1590, p. 109.) “Cuthbert, desiring to make gain, allowed the theatre to remain after the expiry of the lease, when it became clearly vested in the Landlord,” who, “seeing the grievous abuses that came by the said Theatre, resolved to pull it downe”; but Cuthbert carried it away “in and about 28th December, 1598.” Alleyn claimed to have commenced an action in Hilary Term following (i.e. January 1599); but Cuthbert exhibited a bill to stay him in Easter. We have proved both of his dates incorrect. Alleyn goes on to make an extraordinary charge—that Burbage had combined with John Maddox, his attorney, and Richard Lane, the Register of the Court of Requests, to draw up a forged order that he should not make any demurrer. Being ignorant of this, he drew up a demurrer and went home to Haseley, thinking everything settled till the case should be heard. But Burbage gave information that he had “broken order,” and he was, for supposed contempt, in the vacation time following, fetched up to London by a pursuivant, “to his great vexation and annoyance, a man very aged and unfitt to travell, to his excessive charges in journey, and likewise to his great discredit and disgrace among his neighbours in the country.” The pursuivant brought him to a Master of the Court of Requests, and bound him in a bond of £200 to Cuthbert to appear at Michaelmas, when he was purged of contempt. Alleyn further said he had witnesses to bring up, but Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, reviling them because they had formerly testified untruths, threatened to stab them if they did it again, so that the witnesses were terrified and could not testify on his behalf. Meanwhile Burbage suborned his witnesses “to commit grievous perjury” concerning the costs of James Burbage, “by which unlawful practises your said subject did then lose his case.” Further, in the suit between him and Peter Street, and between him and Cuthbert Burbage, one William Smith laid out “divers sums of money on their behalf, whereby arose forcible entries, abuse of justice, law, and order, and examples of misdemeanour worthy of punishment.” Cuthbert and Richard Burbage and the others denied all his charges, and denied “the riott in pulling down the said playhouse called the Theatre.” Cuthbert “in conscience, being the assignee, could justify it, although not in strictness of common law, by Alleyn’s breach of covenant.” Therefore he had sought relief in the Court of Requests, which on 18th October 1600, non-suited Alleyn, and forbade him ever again from bringing another “action for pulling down of The Theatre.” Cuthbert added that Alleyn “offers great scandal and abuse to your Majesty’s Council by calling the same matter again in question, after such judiciall sentence and decree passed against him.” On 12th June 1602, Richard Lane, “who was then and is still acting as deputy Register in the Court of Requests,” denied Alleyn’s charge against himself. His whole procedure had been what he was accustomed to for the past thirty years; he therefore denied the charge of forgery. On 17th June Richard Hudson and Thomas Osborne denied the charge of perjury brought by Alleyn against them. After these wholesale denials Giles Alleyn’s bill of complaint and the demurrers were referred to the consideration of “the right worshipful Mr. Francis Bacon, Esq.”; and he decided that Giles Alleyn’s bill of complaint was very uncertain and insufficient in law, and no further answer need be made to it. This means that it was dismissed. This is my first discovery of any association between Francis Bacon and the theatre, and even the Baconians must allow it was a purely legal one, and not literary.

Alleyn defied legal etiquette and legal decision by continuing the postponed suit against the same man in another court. This is the case in the Queen’s Bench (Coram Rege Roll, Easter 44 Eliz. R. 257), which is varied from the former one in that court by being brought directly against Burbage, instead of his servant Peter Street. The case gives the former recitals quoted by Halliwell-Phillipps, who apparently did not understand that Burbage argued this time that Alleyn was incompetent to bring the action. Giles Alleyn and Sara his wife appealed to the country for a jury. This was never summoned, because, Alleyn’s case being dismissed from the Star Chamber in Trinity, 44 Eliz., he was left by the previous decision of the Court of Requests incompetent at law to bring the case at all.

I can only account for Giles Alleyn’s audacity in bringing such a case again by the fact that since the Privy Council’s decision had occurred, the Essex conspiracy, executions, imprisonments, and fines had occupied the attention of the Privy Council, and weakened the strength of the players’ friends at Court. Burbage’s company themselves had not escaped without suspicion: Augustine Phillips had been summoned, though he had proved his innocence, and the company performed at Court till the eve of the executions.

Giles Alleyn was a stubborn and testy man, and very likely would have revived the case the following year in the new reign. But, unfortunately for him, the new sovereign from the first showed decided favour to these special players, and, among the first acts he performed in his reign, patented them to be his own Royal Servants and Grooms of the Chamber. Exit “Giles Alleyn, Armiger.” After that, the troubles were ended concerning the transportation of the Theatre over the water to Southwark and its transformation into the Globe, though the losses crippled the company for long.

This paper acts as the second part of my answer to the Baconian query, “Where did Shakespeare learn his law?”

“Athenæum,” Oct. 16, 1909.

PS.—These latter two articles and several lectures on the same subject were expanded into a volume called “Burbage and Shakespeare’s Stage,” delayed by my printers until July 1913, and then delayed by my wish in publication till 8th September 1913. Later in the same year came out Dr. Wallace’s “Nebraska University Studies,” where he gives many of the documents in extenso, along with some interesting depositions from the Uncalendared Court of Requests which he was permitted to see in advance of others. He has chosen to add a note that “he told me,” in 1908, of all these papers above-mentioned. He is mistaken. If he ever told anybody it must have been somebody else. Neither then, nor at any time, did he ever tell me anything that I wished to know. I had all my papers before he began his work, which I can prove.