This repliant [Kirkham] and his said partners [Rastell and Kendall] have had and received the sum of one hundred pounds per annum for their part and moiety in the premises without any manner of charges whatsoever [i.e., during Kirkham's management of the troupe prior to 1605].[349] And after that this replyant and his said partners had received the foresaid profits [i.e., after Kirkham and his partners had to give up the management of the Children in 1605], the said Children, which the said Evans in his answer affirmeth to be the Queen's Children [i.e., they are no longer the Queen's Children, for after 1605 they had been deprived of the Queen's patronage; but Kirkham was in error, for Evans with legal precision had referred to the company as 'The Queen's Majesty's Children of the Revels (for so it was often called)'] were masters themselves [i.e., their own managers], and this complainant and his said partners received of them, and of one Keysar who was interest with them, above the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum only for the use of the said great hall, without all manner of charges, as this replyant will make it manifest to this honorable court.[350]
Under Keysar's management the Blackfriars troupe continued to act as the Children of the Revels. But, unfortunately, they had not learned wisdom from their recent experience, and in the very following year we find them again in serious trouble. John Day's Isle of Guls, acted in February, 1606, gave great offense to the Court. Sir Edward Hoby, in a letter to Sir Thomas Edwards,[351] writes: "At this time was much speech of a play in the Blackfriars, where, in the Isle of Guls, from the highest to the lowest, all men's parts were acted of two diverse nations. As I understand, sundry were committed to Bridewell."[352]
The Children, however, were soon allowed to resume playing, and they continued for a time without mishap. But in the early spring of 1608 they committed the most serious offense of all by acting Chapman's Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron. The French Ambassador took umbrage at the uncomplimentary representation of the contemporary French Court, and had an order made forbidding them to act the play. But the Children, "voyant toute la Cour dehors, ne laisserent de la faire, et non seulement cela, mais y introduiserent la Reine et Madame de Verneuil, traitant celle-ci fort mal de paroles, et lui donnant un soufflet." Whereupon the French Ambassador made special complaint to Salisbury, who ordered the arrest of the author and the actors. "Toutefois il ne s'en trouva que trois, qui aussi-tôt furent menés à la prison où ils sont encore; mais le principal, qui est le compositeur, échapa."[353] The Ambassador observes also that a few days before the Children of the Revels had given offense by a play on King James: "Un jour ou deux avant, ils avoient dépêché leur Roi, sa mine d'Ecosse, et tous ses Favoris d'une étrange sorte; car aprés lui avoir fait dépiter le Ciel sur le vol d'un oisseau, et fait battre un Gentilhomme pour avoir rompu ses chiens, ils le dépeignoient ivre pour le moins une fois le jour."[354] As a result of these two offenses, coming as a climax to a long series of such offenses, the King was "extrêmement irrité contre ces marauds-là," and gave order for their immediate suppression. This marked the end of the child-actors at Blackfriars.
Naturally Kirkham, Rastell, and Kendall, since there was "no profit made of the said house, but a continual rent of forty pounds to be paid for the same," became sick of their bargain with Evans. An additional reason for their wishing to withdraw finally from the enterprise was the rapid increase of the plague, which about July 25 closed all playhouses. So Kirkham, "at or about the 26 of July, 1608, caused the apparrels, properties, and goods belonging to the copartners, sharers, and masters" to be divided. Kirkham and his associates took away their portions, and "quit the place," the one-time manager using to Evans some unkind words: "said he would deal no more with it, 'for,' quod he, 'it is a base thing,' or used words to such or very like effect."[355] Evans, thus deserted by Kirkham, Rastell, and Kendall, regarded the organization of the Blackfriars as dissolved; he "delivered up their commission which he had under the Great Seal authorizing them to play, and discharged diverse of the partners and poets."
Robert Keysar, however, the old manager, laid plans to keep the Children together, and continue them as a troupe after the cessation of the plague. For a while, we are told, he maintained them at his own expense, "in hope to have enjoyed his said bargain ... upon the ceasing of the general sickness."[356] And he expected, by virtue of the share he had purchased from John Marston, to be able to use the Blackfriars Playhouse for his purpose.
In the meanwhile Evans began negotiations with Burbage for the surrender of the lease: "By reason the said premises lay then and had long lyen void and without use for plays, whereby the same became not only burthensome and unprofitable unto the said Evans, but also ran far into decay for want of reparations ... the said Evans began to treat with the said Richard Burbage about a surrender of the said Evans his said lease."[357] This time Burbage listened to the proposal, for he and his fellow-actors at the Globe "considered that the house would be fit for themselves." So in August, 1608, he agreed to take over the building for the use of the King's Men.
Even after Evans's surrender of the lease, Keysar, it seems, made an effort to keep the Children together. On the following Christmas, 1608-09, we find a record of payment to him for performances at Court, by "The Children of Blackfriars." But soon after this the troupe must have been disbanded. Keysar says that they were "enforced to be dispersed and turned away to the abundant hurt of the said young men";[358] and the Burbages and Heminges declare that the children "were dispersed and driven each of them to provide for himself by reason that the plays ceasing in the City of London, either through sickness, or for some other cause, he, the said complainant [Keysar], was no longer able to maintain them together."[359] In the autumn of 1609, however, Keysar assembled the Children again, reorganized them with the assistance of Philip Rosseter, and placed them in Whitefriars Playhouse, recently left vacant by the disruption of the Children of His Majesty's Revels. Their subsequent history will be found related in the [chapter] dealing with that theatre.
When in August, 1608, Richard Burbage secured from Evans the surrender of the Blackfriars lease, he at once proceeded to organize from the Globe Company a syndicate to operate the building as a playhouse. He admitted to partnership in the new enterprise all of the then sharers in the Globe except Witter and Nichols, outsiders who had secured their interest through marriage with the heirs of Pope and Phillips, and who, therefore, were not entitled to any consideration. In addition, he admitted Henry Evans, doubtless in fulfillment of a condition in the surrender of the lease. The syndicate thus formed was made up of seven equal sharers, as follows: Richard Burbage, Cuthbert Burbage, Henry Evans, William Shakespeare, John Heminges, Henry Condell, and William Slye. These sharers leased the building from Richard Burbage for a period of twenty-one years,[360] at the old rental of £40 per annum, each binding himself to pay annually the sum of £5 14s. 4d.[361] The method of distributing the profits between the sharers (known as "housekeepers") and the actors (known as the "company") was to be the same as that practiced at the Globe.[362]
Soon after this organization was completed, the King's Men moved from the Globe to the Blackfriars. They did not, of course, intend to abandon the Globe. Their plan was to use the Blackfriars as a "winter home," and the Globe as a "summer house."[363] Malone observed from the Herbert Manuscript that "the King's Company usually began to play at the Globe in the month of May";[364] although he failed to state at what time in the autumn they usually moved to the Blackfriars, the evidence points to the first of November.
Such a plan had many advantages. For one thing, it would prevent the pecuniary losses often caused by a severe winter. In the Poetaster (1601), Jonson makes Histrio, representing the Globe Players, say: "O, it will get us a huge deal of money, and we have need on't, for this winter has made us all poorer than so many starved snakes; nobody comes at us."[365] This could not be said of the King's Men after they moved to the Blackfriars. Edward Kirkham, a man experienced in theatrical finances, offered to prove to the court in 1612 that the King's Men "got, and as yet doth, more in one winter in the said great hall by a thousand pounds than they were used to get on the Bankside."[366]