Especially, and above all the rest, she was most taken with the report of three famous amphitheatres, which stood so near situated that her eye might take view of them from the lowest turret. One was the Continent of the World [i.e., the Globe], because half the year a world of beauties and brave spirits resorted unto it; the other was a building of excellent Hope, and though wild beasts and gladiators did most possess it, yet the gallants that came to behold those combats, though they were of a mixt society, yet were many noble worthies amongst them; the last which stood, and, as it were, shak'd hands with this fortress, being in times past as famous as any of the other, was now fallen to decay, and like a dying Swanne, hanging down her head, seemed to sing her own dirge.
This is the last that we hear of the playhouse, that was "in times past as famous as any of the other." What finally became of the building we do not know. It is not shown in Hollar's View of London, in 1647, and probably it had ceased to exist before the outbreak of the Civil War.
CHAPTER XI
THE SECOND BLACKFRIARS
IN 1596 Burbage's lease of the plot of ground on which he had erected the Theatre was drawing to a close, and all his efforts at a renewal had failed. The owner of the land, Gyles Alleyn, having, in spite of the terms of the original contract, refused to extend the lease until 1606, was craftily plotting for a substantial increase in the rental; moreover, having become puritanical in his attitude towards the drama, he was insisting that if the lease were renewed, the Theatre should be used as a playhouse for five years only, and then should either be torn down, or be converted into tenements. Burbage tentatively agreed to pay the increased rental, but, of course, he could not possibly agree to the second demand; and when all negotiations on this point proved futile, he realized that he must do something at once to meet the awkward situation.
In the twenty years that had elapsed since the erection of the Theatre and the Curtain in Holywell, the Bankside had been developed as a theatrical district, and the Rose and the Swan, not to mention the Bear Garden, had made the south side of the river the popular place for entertainments. Naturally, therefore, any one contemplating the erection of a playhouse would immediately think of this locality. Burbage, however, was a man of ideas. He believed that he could improve on the Bankside as a site for his theatre. He remembered how, at the outset of his career as a theatrical manager, he had had to face competition with Richard Farrant who had opened a small "private" playhouse in Blackfriars. Although that building had not been used as a "public" playhouse, and had been closed up after a few years of sore tribulation, it had revealed to Burbage the possibilities of the Blackfriars precinct for theatrical purposes. In the first place, the precinct was not under the jurisdiction of the city, so that actors would not there be subject to the interference of the Lord Mayor and his Aldermen. As Stevens writes in his History of Ancient Abbeys, Monasteries, etc.: "All the inhabitants within it were subject to none but the King ... neither the Mayor, nor the sheriffs, nor any other officers of the City of London had the least jurisdiction or authority therein." Blackfriars, therefore, in this fundamental respect, was just as desirable a location for theatres as was Holywell to the north of the city, or the Bankside to the south. In the second place, Blackfriars had a decided advantage over those two suburban localities in that it was "scituated in the bosome of the Cittie,"[277] near St. Paul's Cathedral, the centre of London life, and hence was readily accessible to playgoers, even during the disagreeable winter season. In the third place, the locality was distinctly fashionable. To give some notion of the character of its inhabitants, I record below the names of a few of those who lived in or near the conventual buildings at various times after the dissolution: George Brooke, Lord Cobham; William Brooke, Lord Cobham, Lord Chamberlain of the Queen's Household; Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports; Sir Thomas Cheney, Treasurer of the Queen's Household, and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports; Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain of the Queen's Household; George Carey, Lord Hunsdon, who as Lord Chamberlain was the patron of Shakespeare's troupe; Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the Revels; Sir Henry Jerningham, Fee Chamberlain to the Queen's Highness; Sir Willam More, Chamberlain of the Exchequer; Lord Zanche; Sir John Portynary; Sir William Kingston; Sir Francis Bryan; Sir John Cheeke; Sir George Harper; Sir Philip Hoby, Lady Anne Gray; Sir Robert Kyrkham; Lady Perrin; Sir Christopher More; Sir Henry Neville; Sir Thomas Saunders; Sir Jerome Bowes; and Lady Jane Guildford.[278] Obviously the locality was free from the odium which the public always associated with Shoreditch and the Bankside, the recognized homes of the London stews.[279]
Thus, a playhouse erected in the precinct of Blackfriars would escape all the grave disadvantages of situation which attached to the existing playhouses in the suburbs, and, on the other hand, would gain several very important advantages.
Burbage's originality, however, did not stop with the choice of Blackfriars as the site of his new theatre; he determined to improve on the form of building as well. The open-air structure which he had designed in 1576, and which had since been copied in all public theatres, had serious disadvantages in that it offered no protection from the weather. Burbage now resolved to provide a large "public" playhouse, fully roofed in, with the entire audience and the actors protected against the inclemency of the sky and the cold of winter. In short, his dream was of a theatre centrally located, comfortably heated, and, for its age, luxuriously appointed.