[852] Dasent, vi. 102. The Lord Mayor is to send offending players 'to the Commissioners for Religion to be by them further ordered, and also to take ordre that no playe be made hencefourthe within the Citie except the same be first seen and allowed and the players aucthorised'.
[853] Cf. ch. xxii and App. D, Nos. ix, xii, xiii. The Commission had also an authority over vagrants in or near London, which apparently disappeared after the legislation of 1572 (vide infra).
[854] There is a doubtful notice of a Court play by the servants of George Evelyn of Wotton in 1588. Sir Percival Hart's sons played in 1565.
[855] The list of small travelling companies in Murray, ii. 77, 113, includes 14 belonging to knights and 3 to gentlemen in 1558-72, and 8 belonging to knights and 2 to gentlemen in 1573-97; also 7 companies under the names of their towns only in 1558-72 and 11 in 1573-97. Alexander Houghton of Lea in Lancashire wrote on 3 Aug. 1581 (G. J. Piccope, Lancashire and Cheshire Wills, ii. 238), 'Yt ys my wyll that Thomas Houghton of Brynescoules my brother shall have all my instrumentes belonginge to mewsyckes and all maner of playe clothes yf he be mynded to keppe and doe keppe players. And yf he wyll not keppe and maynteyne playeres then yt ys my wyll that Sir Thomas Heskethe Knyghte shall haue the same instrumentes and playe clothes. And I moste hertelye requyre the said Syr Thomas to be ffrendlye unto Foke Gyllome and William Shakshafte now dwellynge with me and ether to take theym unto his servyce or els to helpe theym to some good master'. Was then William Shakshafte a player in 1581?
[856] S. P. D. Eliz. clx. 48; clxiii. 44, record a dispute in 1583 between Sir Walter Waller and Mr. Potter, a J.P. of Kent. Waller, summoned before the Council, denies that his servants played an interlude at Brasted, and is confirmed by the constable and parishioners, who assert that Mr. Potter factiously sent the men to gaol as rogues. Lord Cobham made a vain attempt to reconcile the parties.
[857] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 259, on the history of this privilege. The reservation was continued by 39 Eliz. c. 4, § 10 (1598). By 43 Eliz. c. 9, § 2 (1601), it was made dependent on a certificate by the Lords Justices to the validity of Dutton's claim. Presumably this was obtained as the privilege was reserved unconditionally by 1 Jac. I, c. 7, § 8 (1604). There were several Elizabethan actors of the name of Dutton (cf. ch. xv), but it is not known whether they belonged to the Cheshire house.
[858] For documents addressed to Richard Young or mentions of him, cf. App. D, Nos. lxviii, lxxiv, xc. He is often referred to in the Hatfield MSS., in connexion with a monopoly of starch which he held, and otherwise. In 1593 (iv. 393) he writes 'from my house, Stratford the Bowe'. On 30 Nov. 1594 (v. 25) he wrote to the Queen, 'in these my aged and extreme or last days' with notes of many examinations, chiefly of papists, taken by him. On the other hand, Carter, Shakespeare Puritan and Recusant, 145, quotes an inscription on the coffin of Roger Rippon, who died in Newgate in 1592, 'his blood crieth for speedy vengeance against ... Mʳ. Richard Young, a justice of the peace in London, who in this and many like points hath abused his power for the upholding of the Romish Antichrist, Prelacy and Priesthood'.
[859] Cf. p. 265. Collier, i. 254, quotes an epigram calling Fleetwood 'the enemy of all poor players'. John Field dedicates his Godly Exhortation (1583) to him as a Middlesex and Surrey Justice.
[860] Cf. App. D, Nos. xxxvii, lxviii.
[861] Bacon, On the Controversies of the Church (Spedding, viii. 76).