That leads directly to my M. Chamber.
Here, then, is III. i. Arden and Francklin talk and go to bed. Michael, in remorse, alarms them with an outcry, and when they appear, explains that he ‘fell asleepe, Vpon the thresholde leaning to the staires’ and had a bad dream. Arden then finds that ‘the dores were all unlockt’. Later (III. iv. 8) Michael lies about this to the murderers:
Francklin and my master
Were very late conferring in the porch,
And Francklin left his napkin where he sat
With certain gold knit in it, as he said.
Being in bed, he did bethinke himselfe,
And comming down he found the dores vnshut:
He lockt the gates, and brought away the keyes.
When the murderers come in III. ii, Will bids Shakebag ‘show me to this house’, and Shakebag says ‘This is the doore; but soft, me thinks tis shut’. They are therefore at the outer door of the courtyard; cf. p. 69, n. 2. Similarly 1 Rich. II, III. ii, which begins with ‘Enter Woodstock, Lancaster, and Yorke, at Plashey’, and ‘heere at Plasshy house I’le bid you wellcome’, is clearly in a courtyard. A servant says (114), ‘Ther’s a horseman at the gate.... He will not off an’s horse-backe till the inner gate be open’. Gloucester bids ‘open the inner gate ... lett hime in’, and (s.d.) ‘Enter a spruce Courtier a horse-backe’. It is also before the house, for the Courtier says, ‘Is he within’, and ‘I’le in and speake with the duke’. Rather more difficult is Englishmen for my Money, sc. iv, ‘Enter Pisaro’ with others, and says, ‘Proud am I that my roofe containes such friends’ (748), also ‘I would not haue you fall out in my house’ (895). He sends his daughters ‘in’ (827, 851), so must be in the porch, and a ‘knock within’ (s.d.) and ‘Stirre and see who knocks!’ (796) suggest a courtyard gate. But later in the play (cf. p. 58, n. 4) the street seems to be directly before the same house.