The first part of this order, limiting the playhouses and companies to two, was merely a repetition of the order of 1598.[439] It meant that the Lords of the Privy Council formally licensed the Admiral's and the Lord Chamberlain's Companies to play in London (of course the Lords might, when they saw fit, license other companies for specific periods). The second part of the order, limiting the number of performances, was more serious, for no troupe could afford to act only twice a week. The order if carried out would mean the ruin of the Fortune and the Globe Companies. But it was not carried out. The actors, as we learn from Henslowe's Diary, did not restrict themselves to two plays a week. Why, then, did the Lords issue this order, and why was it not put into effect? A study of the clever way in which Alleyn, Nottingham, and the Privy Council overcame the opposition of the puritanical officers of St. Giles who were interfering with the erection of the Fortune will suggest the explanation. The Lords were making a shrewd move to quiet the noisy enemies of the drama. They did not intend that the Admiral's and the Chamberlain's Men should be driven out of existence; they were merely meeting fanaticism with craft.
Alleyn and Henslowe must have understood this,—possibly they learned it directly from their patron Nottingham,—for they proceeded with the erection of their expensive building. The work, however, had been so seriously delayed by the restraints of the local authorities that the foundations were not completed until May 8.[440] On that day carpenters were brought from Windsor, and set to the task of erecting the frame. Since the materials had been accumulating on the site since January 17, the work of erection must have proceeded rapidly. The daily progress of this work is marked in Henslowe's Diary by the dinners of Henslowe with the contractor, Peter Street. On August 8, these dinners ceased, so that on that date, or shortly after, we may assume, the building proper was finished.[441]
For erecting the building Street received £440. But this did not include the painting of the woodwork (which, if we may judge from De Witt's description of the Swan, must have been costly), or the equipment of the stage. We learn from Alleyn's memoranda that the final cost of the playhouse was £520.[442] Hence, after Street's work of erection was finished in August, the entire building had to be painted, and the stage properly equipped with curtains, hangings, machines, etc. This must have occupied at least two months. From Henslowe's Diary it appears that the playhouse was first used about the end of November or the early part of December, 1600.[443]
The original contract of Henslowe and Alleyn with Peter Street for the erection of the Fortune, preserved among the papers at Dulwich College, supplies us with some very exact details of the size and shape of the building. Although the document is long, and is couched in the legal verbiage of the day, it will repay careful study. For the convenience of the reader I quote below its main specifications:[444]
Foundation. A good, sure, and strong foundation, of piles, brick, lime, and sand, both without and within, to be wrought one foot of assize at the least above the ground.
Frame. The frame of the said house to be set square, and to contain fourscore foot of lawful assize every way square without, and fifty-five foot of like assize square every way within.
Materials. And shall also make all the said frame in every point for scantlings larger and bigger in assize than the scantlings of the said new-erected house called the Globe.
Exterior. To be sufficiently enclosed without with lath, lime, and hair.
Stairs. With such like stairs, conveyances, and divisions, without and within, as are made and contrived in and to the late erected playhouse ... called the Globe.... And the staircases thereof to be sufficiently enclosed without with lath, lime, and hair.
Height of galleries. And the said frame to contain three stories in height; the first, or lower story to contain twelve foot of lawful assize in height; the second story eleven foot of lawful assize in height; and the third, or upper story, to contain nine foot of lawful assize in height.