The following record appears in the court books of the Carpenters’ Company:[1076]
Courte holden the xvth daie of Julie 1567, Annoque Regni Reginae Eliz. nono by Mr William Ruddoke, Mr Richard More, Henrye Whreste & Richard Smarte wardeins, & Mr Bradshawe.
Memorandum that at courte holden the daie & yeare abovesayd that, whear certaine varyaunce, discord & debate was betwene Wyllyam Sylvester carpenter on thone partie & John Brayne grocer on thother partie, yt is agreed, concluded & fullie determyned by the saide parties, by the assent & consent of them bothe, with the advise of the Mr & wardeins abovesayd that Willyam Buttermore, John Lyffe, Willyam Snellinge & Richard Kyrbye, Carpenters, shall with expedicon goe & peruse suche defaultes as are & by them shalbe found of in & aboute suche skaffoldes, as he the said Willyam hathe mad at the house called the Red Lyon in the parishe of Stebinyhuthe, & the said Willyam Sillvester shall repaire & amend the same with their advize substancyallie, as they shall thinke good. And that the said John Brayne, on Satterdaie next ensuenge the date above written, shall paye to the sayd Willyam Sylvester the some of eight poundes, tenne shillinges, lawfull money of England, & that after the playe, which is called the storye of Sampson, be once plaied at the place aforesaid the said John shall deliver to the said Willyam such bondes as are now in his custodie for the performaunce of the bargaine. In witnesse whereof both parties hereunto hathe sett their handes.
by me John Brayne grocer.
[Sylvester’s mark.]
This is the only notice of the Red Lion playing-inn which has been preserved, but John Brayne, grocer, is doubtless the same who financed his brother-in-law, James Burbadge, in the far more important enterprise of the Theatre in 1576. Stebunheth or Stepney was a parish in Middlesex, lying to the east of the City, beyond Whitechapel, and, although near enough to be in a sense a suburb, was outside the civic jurisdiction.
ii. THE BULL INN
The first notice of the Bull is on 7 June 1575 when the playing of a ‘prize’ there is recorded in the register of the School of Defence. It appears to have been the most popular of all localities for this purpose and there are fourteen similar notices of its use in the register, ending with one on 3 July 1590.[1077] Florio refers to it as a place for plays in 1578.[1078] Stephen Gosson in his Schoole of Abuse (1579) exempts from his ordinary condemnation of plays The Jew and Ptolemy ‘shown at the Bull’.[1079] On 1 July 1582 the Earl of Warwick asked permission from the Lord Mayor for his servant John David to play his provost prizes at ‘the Bull in Bishopsgatestrete or some other conuenient place to be assigned within the liberties of London’. This was refused, much to Warwick’s annoyance, on the ground that an inn was a place ‘somewhat to close for infection’, and David appointed to play ‘in an open place of the Leaden hall’.[1080] The Bull, with the Bell, was assigned by a civic order of 28 November 1583 to the Queen’s men for their first winter season. Tarlton and the Queen’s men are said in the Jests to have played ‘oftentimes’ at ‘the Bull in Bishops-gate-street’, and here their play of The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, with Tarlton in the parts of the judge and the clown and Knell in that of Henry, was given.[1081] This must, of course, have been between 1583 and Tarlton’s death in 1588. In 1592 the translator of The Spaniard’s Monarchie disclaims any ‘title fetched from the Bull within Bishopsgate, as a figge for a Spaniard’. I do not know whether any old play underlying the Admiral’s (q.v.) Spanish Fig of 1601–2 can be referred to. The house was still in use during 1594, for in April or May of that year Anthony Bacon settled in Bishopsgate, to the vexation of his mother, ‘on account of its neighbourhood to the Bull Inn, where plays and interludes were continually acted, and would, she imagined, corrupt his servants’.[1082] Richard Flecknoe mentions the Bull in Bishopsgate Street, with the Cross-Keys, as one of the inns turned into theatres at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, as was ‘at this day to be seen’ in 1664.[1083] The site was at No. 91 on the west of Bishopsgate Street, and is shown in Hatton’s map of 1708, and the Ordnance Survey maps of 1848–51 and 1875.
iii. THE BELL INN
This inn existed in 1560, for on 12 June of that year ‘the wyff of the Bell in Gracyous-strett’ was carted as a bawd and whore.[1084] Plays must have been used there in 1576–7, in the Revels Account for which year an item of 10d. is included ‘ffor the cariadge of the partes of ye well counterfeit from the Bell in Gracious strete to St. Iohns to be performed for the play of Cutwell’.[1085] With the Bull, it was assigned to the Queen’s men by a civic order of 28 November 1583 for their first winter season. Tarlton’s Jests also mention Tarlton and ‘his fellowes’, probably the Queen’s men, as performing at the Bell ‘by’ the Cross Keys which was also in Gracious Street, and this must have been before Tarlton’s death in 1588.[1086] Both houses may be included in Rawlidge’s reference to play-houses in Gracious street and elsewhere ‘put down’ by the City in Elizabeth’s time. I suppose that the site is that of Bell Yard at No. 12 on the west of Gracechurch Street.[1087]