The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 2

by E. K. Chambers

More, according to his own account, was not best pleased at the use made of his house. He complained that Farrant, after pretending that he only meant to teach the children in it, had made it a ‘continuall howse for plays’ to the offence of the precinct, and to fit it for the purpose had pulled down and defaced Neville’s partitions, spoiled the windows, and brought the house to great ruin. He had also sublet certain portions, and, as he was not entitled to do this under his lease without licence, More claimed the forfeiture of the lease. At this moment, on 30 November 1580, Farrant died, leaving the house to his widow Anne. For some months there were no plays in the theatre. Then Hunnis resolved to carry on Farrant’s enterprise himself, and on a recommendation from the Earl of Leicester More appears to have given at least a tacit consent to a sub-letting by Anne to Hunnis and one John Newman on 20 December 1581. They were to do repairs and pay her £6 13s. 4d. in rent more than the £14 due to More. An unfortunate slip of the scrivener’s pen cut Mrs. Farrant’s profit down to £6 6s. 8d. They also gave bonds of £100 each for the due fulfilment of their covenants, and according to Newman’s statement to More, paid £30 down. According to Mrs. Farrant they neglected their repairs and were extremely irregular with their rent, so that she was put to great shifts in order to satisfy Sir William More, disposing of a small reversion given her by the Queen, pawning her plate and jewels, selling a dozen of gold buttons here and a set of viols there, and borrowing of powerful friends such as Lord Cobham or Henry Sackford, the Master of the Tents. Meanwhile Hunnis and Newman disposed of their interest to one Henry Evans, a scrivener, and More, incensed at this, took definite steps in the spring of 1583 to recover his house by executing a fresh lease to one of his men, Thomas Smallpiece, and setting Smallpiece to sue for the ejectment of Evans. The latter tried to elude him by a further transfer of the sub-lease to the Earl of Oxford, who passed it on to John Lyly, the poet; and thus, says More, the title was ‘posted over from one to another from me’ contrary to the conditions of the original lease. Doubtless Hunnis, Lyly, and Evans were all working together under the Earl’s patronage, for a company under Oxford’s name was taken to Court by Lyly in the winter of 1583–4 and by Evans in the winter of 1584–5, and it seems pretty clear that in 1583–4, at any rate, it was in fact made up of boys from the Chapel and Paul’s.[1565] More, however, pursued his point, and about Easter 1584 recovered legal possession of his house. Some months before, Anne Farrant, in despair, had appealed to Sir Francis Walsingham, and had also brought actions at common law against Hunnis and Newman for the forfeiture of their bonds. They applied to the Court of Requests to take over the case, and there is no formal record of the outcome. But in January 1587 Mrs. Farrant was again complaining to the Privy Council, and Sir John Wolley was asked to bring about a settlement between her and More, who was his father-in-law.[1566]

So ends the story of the first Blackfriars theatre. The premises which it had occupied came into the hands of Henry Lord Hunsdon, who was also about the same time tenant of More’s mansion house and garden.[1567] It would seem that Lord Oxford and Lyly had passed on to Hunsdon their sub-leases from the Farrants and that, even when he recovered legal possession from the court, More did not care to interfere with this arrangement. But there was evidently some friction. The sub-leases were due to expire in 1590 or 1591, and in April 1586 More refused to renew them. His excuse was that ‘The howses yow had of Lyllye I determyne that assone as theye bothe shall cum into my handes to kepe them to the onelye vse of me and mye chylderne’. In acknowledging this decision, Hunsdon complained that the pipe of water belonging to one of the houses had been diverted to serve that of Lord Cobham. In 1590 he made a fresh attempt to secure a renewal. More at first drafted a letter of consent, but then changed his mind and told Hunsdon that he needed the houses for his daughter Lady Wolley and for himself on his visits to London. Hunsdon had suffered annoyance because the tenant of the next house ‘having the vse of the leades, either by negligence or otherwise, suffereth the boyes to cutt upp the lead with knifes or to boore yt through with bodkyns wherby the rayne cometh throwghe’.[1568] This allusion, together with that to the pipe of water, makes it clear that Hunsdon’s houses included the rooms covered by Neville’s lease of 1560, in which the right of dancing-master Frith to use the leads over the southern block is expressly safeguarded. I think it is probable that the two houses are merely the southern and northern sections of the Farrant holding, separately sublet to Hunsdon. It is known that Farrant himself, while in occupation of the theatre, had let off certain rooms. More’s wish to retain the property for family reasons did not long outlast its immediate purpose of decently covering a refusal to the Lord Chamberlain. Frith’s tenancy also came to an end, and for some period between 1590 and 1596 the rooms formerly constituting the upper frater were reunited in the occupation of William de Laune, a doctor of physic. The rooms to the north of them, after his appointment as Chamberlain of the Exchequer on 23 November 1591, were used by More for the purposes of the Pipe Office.[1569] The buttery and pantry beneath were probably also relet in 1591.[1570]

I must now turn to the history of the ‘paved hall’ and ‘blind parlour’ under the upper frater and the little chamber and kitchen to the west of these, all of which, when Cawarden obtained possession in 1550, were under the shadow of a claim by Sir Thomas Cheyne. Blagrave’s occupation of the little chamber terminated when the Revels Office moved to St. John’s in 1560, and on 10 December 1564 More drafted a lease of it to one Laurence Bywater, who had in fact been in occupation since 1560.[1571] It is described as consisting of a hall, a chamber above, a little room below, a kitchen, a yard, ‘a long entrie coming in ouer the yard bourded and railed’, and a vault or cellar. The paved hall had been let by 1572 to William Joyner, who used it as a fencing-school. In this year Cheyne’s claim was renewed by one Henry Pole and his wife Margaret, who was the widow of Cheyne’s eldest son. The rooms chiefly in dispute were the paved hall and Bywater’s house, but the Poles seem also to have claimed rooms in the tenures of Richard Frith and Thomas Hale.[1572] It may be conjectured that these were the rooms constructed out of the blind parlour. On the other hand More made a counter-claim, probably not very serious, to Pole tenements in the occupation of Christopher Fenton, Thomas Austen, and John Lewes. Incidentally, it appears that Cawarden had not succeeded in removing all signs of papistry from the Blackfriars, for Bywater’s house is throughout described in the interrogatories taken as the little house having chalices and singing cakes painted in the window. The matter was referred to arbitration.[1573] Pole’s case rested entirely on the question of fact as to what the holding of Cheyne and his predecessors actually comprised in 1540, since the grant named no boundaries but merely gave Cheyne the houses and lands then in his own occupation and formerly in those of Jasper Fylole and of Thomas Ferebye and William Lylgrave. Pole produced some witnesses who declared that before the surrender by the friars one Purpointe had dwelt in Bywater’s house and kept a tavern in the fencing-school, and that subsequently Ferebye and Lylgrave had occupied these premises. They could not say that Cheyne himself had ever had possession of them, but Pole was able to cite the order of the Court of Augmentation in 1550 allowing Cheyne rent for his large room as a store-house for the tents. In More’s view this rent was paid under a misunderstanding, and he seems to have suggested that the only houses occupied by Cheyne and his predecessors were that afterwards occupied by Portinari and one ‘new built’ by Cheyne, in which apparently Lord Henry Seymour was living at the time of the suit. Moreover, he produced a number of witnesses, including Bywater, Blagrave, Thomas Hale, groom of the Tents, Portinari himself, and Elizabeth Baxter, widow of the former porter of the friars, who agreed in deposing that the friars had never let these rooms, which were essential as a breakfast room and a butler’s lodging to their daily life, and gave a perfectly consistent account of the various uses of them after the surrender by Cawarden, Woodman, Phillips, Blagrave, and Bywater, which have already been indicated in this narrative. It does not transpire that More confided to the arbitrators the suspicious references to Cheyne’s claim in the surveys of 1548 and 1550. However this may be, their decision was in his favour on the substantial issue. The Poles were required to acknowledge his right to Bywater’s house and the paved hall, as well as to the tenements of Frith and Hale. More, on the other hand, was to abandon his claim to the tenements of Fenton, Austen, and Lewes, and by way of compromise was to execute a lease of Bywater’s house to the Poles at a nominal rent for fifty years or the term of their lives. This he accordingly did. Nothing more is heard of any of the premises involved until July 1584, just after More had succeeded in putting an end to Lyly’s theatrical enterprise. By this date both Bywater and Joyner had gone, and their places had been taken by another fencing-master, an Italian, Rocco Bonetti by name.[1574] Bonetti had acquired from Margaret Pole, now a widow, her life-interest in the butler’s lodging. He had also taken over from Lyly two leases, one of the fencing-school, the other of a house, the property of More, immediately west of the butler’s lodging.[1575] The latter he had repaired at some cost. He had even been rash enough to put up additional buildings on More’s land. And he had not paid his workmen, to whom he owed £200. The butler’s lodging is described as being in great decay. But this also, or its site, he appears to have enlarged, at the expense of his neighbouring tenement on the west. He feared the expiration of his interests, and got his friends, of whom were Lord Willoughby, Sir John North, and Sir Walter Raleigh, to approach More for an extension of tenure. As regards the western house, More seems to have consented, after much reluctance in view of Bonetti’s indebted condition, to a lease for seven years in 1586.[1576] As regards the butler’s lodging, he was mainly interested in the reversion after Mrs. Pole’s death, and of this reversion he granted Bonetti a ten years’ term by a lease of 20 March 1585.[1577] The holding is described in much the same terms as those used in Bywater’s lease of 1564. The measurements, however, are also given. The length from north to south was 25 ft. 2 in., and the width from east to west 22 ft. 6 in. But 4 ft. 6 in. of the length and 2 ft. of the width were not covered by Mrs. Pole’s lease, and were taken, probably by an encroachment which the lease was intended to regularize, from More’s tenement to the west. For the sake of greater accuracy, the measurements and boundaries of this western tenement are given. It was 33 ft. from north to south and 39 ft. 8 in. from east to west. It was bounded on the north by More’s yard, on the south and west by a house of Mrs. Pole’s, on the south by the way to Sir George Carey’s house, and on the east by More’s house in Bonetti’s tenure, that is to say the house which is the subject of the lease.[1578]

Sir George Carey was the eldest son of Lord Hunsdon, and himself became Lord Hunsdon on 22 July 1596.[1579] He is not traceable in the Blackfriars before 1585, but continued to reside there until his death in 1603. The way to his house corresponds in position with the way to Lady Kingston’s house of the 1548 survey, and he had pretty clearly acquired some or all of her property, including the infirmary under the upper frater.[1580] The way must have followed a line from Water Lane, much the same as that of the present Printing House Lane. The fencing-school was accessible from it by a door next to Carey’s.[1581] Certain other data of the early surveys are a little difficult to reconcile with those of the later documents. The surveys indicate three parallel rows of buildings, of a comparatively insignificant character, extending over a space roughly 80 ft. square between the frater block and Water Lane. The north row consisted of the two-storied Duchy Chamber, a narrow building 50 ft. by 17 ft., and the parlour of Sir John Portinari’s house. These had a frontage on the kitchen yard. South of them came the rest of Portinari’s house, and south of this the little chamber, 26 ft. long by 10 ft. wide, the little kitchen, 23 ft. long by 22 ft. wide, and an entry to the latter, 30 ft. long by 17 ft. wide, which I suppose to have debouched upon Water Lane. The little chamber and kitchen had their frontage on the way leading to Lady Kingston’s. The house referred to as Cheyne’s in the 1550 survey is probably that occupied by Portinari. But Cheyne must also have had other property in the same neighbourhood, which the surveys do not mention. There was the house, probably that described as ‘new built’ in 1572, which he occupied himself, and which afterwards passed to Lord Henry Seymour.[1582] And there were the three tenements which More claimed, but did not secure in 1572. These premises were leased as a whole by the Poles to Christopher Fenton on 31 May 1571, and appear to have been gradually cut up into smaller holdings. By 1610 there were four tenants and by 1614 five. They bounded More’s property, and must have lain in the angle of Water Lane and the way to Lady Kingston’s, just south of the entry to the little kitchen.[1583]

The little chamber of 1548 is undoubtedly the butler’s lodging leased to Bywater in 1564 and to Bonetti in 1585, which was a subject of the lawsuit in 1572. But whereas it measured 26 ft. by 10 ft. in 1548, it measured 22 ft. 6 in. by 25 ft. 2 in. in 1585, and the enumeration of rooms in the two leases show that, although Bonetti may have built a small additional room upon a bit of land filched from More, there had been no substantial change since 1564. Further, while in 1548 it was bounded on the north by Portinari’s holding, it was reached in 1564 by a railed and boarded entry across its yard, and documents of 1596 and 1601 make it clear that this entry terminated in a small porch opening on the kitchen yard.[1584] Similarly the little kitchen, 23 ft. by 22 ft., of 1548 had been replaced in 1584 by a house 33 ft. by 39 ft. 8 in., and of this also Portinari’s house had ceased to be the boundary, and a yard of More’s had been substituted. Finally, More’s successor, Sir George More, was in a position in 1603 to sell to one John Tice a strip of land bounded by Tice’s house on the south, Water Lane on the west, and the kitchen yard on the north and east, which must have been just about where Portinari’s parlour stood at the time of the 1548 survey.[1585] I am now approaching the region of conjecture, but there is only one way of accounting for the facts. More must have acquired and pulled down Portinari’s house, and thus not only let light and air into the somewhat congested district west of the frater, but also left room for extensions in the rear of the little houses fronting on the way to Lady Kingston’s. The extension of the little chamber he had probably himself undertaken before 1564. It did not interfere with the chalices and singing cakes in the window, or prevent the house from being in decay in 1585. In 1572 it could be seen that the house had been covered with lead, but presumably was so no longer.[1586] The extension of the little kitchen seems to have been an enterprise of Bonetti, of which More reaped the profits. The rest of the space gained was utilized for the fencing-school kitchen, for a staircase behind the Duchy Chamber, and for certain yards, all of which were in existence in 1596.[1587] It is just possible that More also pulled down the west end of the Duchy Chamber.

By 1596 both the fencing-school and the butler’s lodging had passed from the occupation of Bonetti. One Thomas Bruskett had the former and one John Favour the latter. This is the year of James Burbadge’s great enterprise of the second Blackfriars theatre. Our first intimation of it is from Lord Hunsdon, in a letter to More of 9 January 1596.[1588] He has heard that More has parted with part of his house for a play-house, and makes an offer for ‘your other howse, which once I had also’. The deed of sale by More to James Burbadge is dated 4 February 1596.[1589] The purchase money was £600. The rooms transferred are carefully described, but only a few of the measurements and boundaries are given. There were seven great upper rooms, ‘sometyme being one greate and entire room’, enclosed with great stone walls, and reached by a great pair of winding stairs from the great yard next the Pipe Office. Other stone stairs reached leads above. These rooms had been lately in the tenure of William de Laune, doctor of physic. Beneath them, or beneath an entry between them and the Pipe Office, lay a vault, of which Burbadge was to have the use only, by a ‘stoole and tonnell’ contrived in the thickness of his north wall.[1590] Under some part of De Laune’s seven rooms, and included in the sale, lay also rooms 52 ft. long and 37 ft. wide, known as the ‘midle romes’ or ‘midle stories’. These extended south to Sir George Carey’s house, and were reached from a lane leading thereto, by a door next to Carey’s gate. They had been in the tenure of Rocco Bonetti and were now in that of Thomas Bruskett, together with a kitchen adjoining, and two cellars reached by stairs from the kitchen, and lying under the north end of the middle rooms. Bruskett had one of these, and the other was occupied by John Favor, who dwelt in the house held for the term of her life by Mrs. Pole. This house did not go to Burbadge, but he had one of two small yards of which Favor had the other, between Mrs. Pole’s house and the cellars. This yard was occupied by Peter Johnson, and Burbadge also took four rooms tenanted by Johnson, and surrounded by his yard on the south, Mrs. Pole’s entry on the west, and the great yard next the Pipe Office on the north. Two of these were under De Laune’s late rooms. The other two were under rooms, to the west of the north end of De Laune’s, which were occupied by Charles Bradshaw, possibly the Bradshaw whose room was begged by Farrant in 1576. Bradshaw also occupied a little buttery, an entry and passage from the seven rooms, and a little room for wood and coals. This lay over the buttery, on the west side of a staircase leading to two rooms or lofts, one of which was over the east and north of Bradshaw’s rooms and the other over the entry between the seven rooms and the Pipe Office. These were in the occupation of Edward Merry, who also had a room or garret over them reached by a further staircase. A staircase also led from Peter Johnson’s yard to Bradshaw’s rooms. Both Bradshaw’s and Merry’s rooms were included in Burbadge’s purchase, which was completed by a small yard and privy on the north side of Pipe Office yard, east of Water Lane, south of Cobham’s house, and west of a house of More’s also occupied by Cobham. Burbadge was also to have the right of depositing coal and other goods for a reasonable time in the old kitchen yard, now called ‘the greate yarde next the Pipe Office’, provided he did not interfere with access to the Pipe Office itself, or to More’s garden or other parts of his premises. The description seems complicated, as one reads the deed, but I think that the disposition of the rooms is fairly intelligible.[1591] The seven upper rooms, once a single great room, can only represent the whole of the old parliament chamber or upper frater, formerly divided into two distinct holdings. This, as we know, abutted across the staircase upon the hall in the northern block which had formed part of Farrant’s holding and which More had converted into the Pipe Office in 1591.[1592] The middle rooms, together with the two easternmost of Johnson’s rooms, must together represent the space of the paved hall and blind parlour. There is no reason to suppose that Burbadge bought from More, or that More ever possessed, anything beyond this space on the ground floor of the frater block; and if the hall and parlour were, as I have suggested, of equal size, the total space passing to Burbadge on this floor was 74 ft. from north to south and 52 ft. from east to west. The rest of the floor had been Lady Kingston’s and passed to Sir George Carey.[1593] Johnson’s other two rooms and Bradshaw’s rooms above them, lying to the west of the north end of the seven great rooms, must be the two floors of the Duchy Chamber. The yards behind them were rendered possible by the clearance of Portinari’s house. Bradshaw’s two smaller rooms were on the staircase tower, and Merry’s rooms and garret were partly at the top of this staircase and partly above the Duchy Chamber.

DIAGRAMS OF BLACKFRIARS

1596

A. LOWER STORY