[1147] T. W., Sermon at Paul’s Cross (3 Nov. 1577), ‘Beholde the sumptuous Theatre houses’; Northbrooke (S. R. 2 Dec. 1577), 85, ‘places ... builded for such Playes and Enterludes, as the Theatre and Curtaine is’; Stockwood, Sermon at Paul’s Cross (24 Aug. 1578), ‘the Theatre, the Curtayne, and other places of Playes in the Citie ... the gorgeous Playing place erected in the fieldes ... as they please to have it called, a Theatre’; News from the North (1579), ‘the Theaters, Curtines ... and such places where the time is so shamefully mispent’; T. Twyne, Physic for Fortune (1579), i. xxx, 42, ‘the Curteine or Theater; which two places are well knowen to be enimies to good manners: for looke who goeth thyther evyl, returneth worse’; Stubbes (S. R. 1 March 1583), i. 144, ‘flockyng and runnyng to Theaters and Curtens ... Venus pallaces’; Field (1583), ‘the distruction bothe of bodye and soule that many are brought unto by frequenting the Theater, the Curtin and such like’; Rankins (1587), f. 4, ‘the Theater and Curtine may aptlie be termed for their abhomination, the chappell adulterinum’; Harrison, Chronologie (1588), i. liv, ‘It is an evident token of a wicked time when plaiers wexe so riche that they can build suche houses’.
[1148] App. D, Nos. XXXV, lxxiv. It appears to have been thought a good example to frequenters of the Theatre that the locality should occasionally be used for a public execution. Stowe, Annales (1615), 749, 750, records the hanging of W. Gunter, a priest from beyond the seas, ‘at the Theater’ on 28 Aug. 1588, and of W. Hartley, another priest, ‘nigh the Theator,’ on 1 Oct. 1588; cf. Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 351, from True Report of the Inditement of Weldon, Hartley, and Sutton, who Suffred for High Treason (1588).
[1149] Sir A. Ashley to Sir R. Cecil (Hatfield MSS. vii. 504).
[1150] Cf. ch. ix. In addition to the occasions described above, the Theatre and Curtain are particularly referred to in the City’s complaint to Walsingham on 3 May 1583, and in the Council’s inhibitions of 29 Oct. 1587, where the ‘Liberty’ of Holywell is clearly pointed at in the allusion to ‘places priviledged’, and 23 June 1592 (App. D, Nos. lxix, lxxx, xc).
[1151] App. D, No. xlii. The County records also contain entries of a recognisance by ‘James Burbage of Shorditch gent.’, Henry Bett, and [Cuthbert] Burbage in the Strond, yeoman’, on 6 April 1592, for the former’s appearance at the next Middlesex sessions, and a similar recognisance of ‘James Burbage of Hallywell, yeoman’, on 11 Sept. 1593 (Jeaffreson, i. 205, 217); but there is nothing to show the nature of the proceedings.
[1152] Cf. App. C, No. xxv.
[1153] App. D, No. cx.
[1154] E. Guilpin, Skialetheia, sat. v:
‘but see yonder,
One, like the unfrequented Theater,