But in this fantastic conceit Randolph may have been thinking simply of the name of the theatre; possibly he knew nothing of its early history. On the whole it seems more likely that the playhouse was newly erected in 1617 upon the site of an old cockpit. The name "Phœnix" suggests that possibly the old cockpit had been destroyed by fire, and that from its ashes had arisen a new building.[579] Howes describes the Phœnix as being in 1617 "a new playhouse,"[580] and Camden, who is usually accurate in such matters, refers to it in the same year as "nuper erectum."[581]

Of its size and shape all our information comes from James Wright, who in his Historia Histrionica[582] tells us that the Cockpit differed in no essential feature from Blackfriars and Salisbury Court, "for they were all three built almost exactly alike for form and bigness." Since we know that Blackfriars and Salisbury Court were small rectangular theatres, the former constructed in a hall forty-six feet broad and sixty-six feet long, the latter erected on a plot of ground forty-two feet broad and one hundred and forty feet long, we are not left entirely ignorant of the shape and the approximate size of the Cockpit.[583] And from Middleton's Inner Temple Masque (1618) we learn that it was constructed of brick. Its sign, presumably, was that of a phœnix rising out of flames.

THE SITE OF THE COCKPIT IN DRURY LANE

The site is marked by Cockpit Court. (From Rocque's Map of London, 1746.)

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The playhouse was erected and managed by Christopher Beeston,[584] one of the most important actors and theatrical managers of the Elizabethan period. We first hear of him as a member of Shakespeare's troupe. In 1602 he joined Worcester's Company. In 1612 he became the manager of Queen Anne's Company at the Red Bull. He is described at that time as "a thriving man, and one that was of ability and means."[585] He continued as manager of the Queen Anne's Men at the Red Bull until 1617, when he transferred them to his new playhouse in Drury Lane.

The playhouse seems to have been ready to receive the players about the end of February, 1617. We know that they were still performing at the Red Bull as late as February 23;[586] but by March 4 they had certainly moved to the Cockpit.

On the latter date, during the performance of a play, the Cockpit was entered by a mob of disorderly persons, who proceeded to demolish the interior. The occasion for the wrecking of the new playhouse was the Shrove Tuesday saturnalia of the London apprentices, who from time immemorial had employed this holiday to pull down houses of ill-fame in the suburbs. That the Cockpit was situated in the neighborhood of such houses cannot be doubted. We may suppose that the mob, fresh from sacking buildings, had crowded into the playhouse in the afternoon, and before the play was over had wrecked that building too.

The event created a great stir at the time. William Camden, in his Annals, wrote under the date of March 4, 1617: