With "a thousand bills posted over the city" Taylor had advertised to the public that at the Hope Playhouse on October 7, 1614, he would engage in a contest of wit with one William Fennor, who proudly styled himself "The King's Majesty's Riming Poet."[551] On the appointed day the house was "fill'd with a great audience" that had paid extra money to hear the contest between two such well-known extemporal wits. But Fennor did not appear. The result may best be told by Taylor himself:
I then stept out, their angers to appease;
But they all raging, like tempestuous seas,
Cry'd out, their expectations were defeated,
And how they all were cony-catch'd and cheated.
Some laught, some swore, some star'd and stamp'd and curst,
And in confusèd humors all out burst.
I (as I could) did stand the desp'rate shock,
And bid the brunt of many dang'rous knock.
For now the stinkards, in their ireful wraths,
Bepelted me with lome, with stones, with laths.
One madly sits like bottle-ale and hisses;
Another throws a stone, and 'cause he misses,
He yawnes and bawles, ...
Some run to th' door to get again their coin ...
One valiantly stepped upon the stage,
And would tear down the hangings in his rage ...
What I endur'd upon that earthly hell
My tongue or pen cannot describe it well.[552]
At this point the actors came to his rescue and presented a play that mollified the audience. Taylor had to content himself with a printed justification. The bitter invective of Taylor against Fennor, Fennor's reply, and Taylor's several answers are to be found in the folio edition of the Water-Poet's works. The episode doubtless furnished much amusement to the city.
Some three weeks after this event, on October 31, 1614, the Lady Elizabeth's Men produced with great success Jonson's Bartholomew Fair; and on November 1 they were called upon to give the play at Court. But the career of the company was in the main unhappy. Henslowe managed their affairs on the theory that "should these fellows come out of my debt, I should have no rule with them."[553] Accordingly in three years he "broke" and again reorganized them no fewer than five times.
At last, in February, 1615, he not only "broke" the company, but severed his connection with them for ever. He turned the hired men over to other troupes, and sold the stock of apparel "to strangers" for £400. The indignant actors, in June, 1615, drew up "Articles of Grievance" in which they charged Henslowe with having extorted from the company by unjust means the sum of £567; and also "Articles of Oppression" in which they accused him of various dishonorable practices in his dealings with them.[554]
Shortly after severing his connection with the Lady Elizabeth's Men, Henslowe, in March, 1615, seems to have taken over Prince Charles's Men, who, it appears, had been acting at the Swan. To this new company—the "strangers" referred to, I think—he had already transferred some of the hirelings, and had sold the Hope stock of apparel for £400.
Henslowe died early in January of the following year, 1616, and his interest in the theatre passed to Edward Alleyn. On March 20, 1616, Alleyn and Meade engaged Prince Charles's Men to continue at the Hope "according to the former articles of agreement had and made with the said Philip [Henslowe] and Jacob [Meade]."[555] The actors acknowledged themselves indebted to Henslowe "for a stock of apparel used for playing apparel, to the value of £400, heretofore delivered unto them by the said Philip,"[556]—the stock formerly used by the Lady Elizabeth's Men; and Alleyn and Meade agreed to accept £200 in full discharge of that debt.[557]
In the winter of 1616-17, Prince Charles's Men quarreled with Meade, who had appropriated an extra day for his bear-baiting. Rosseter had just completed a new private theatre in Porter's Hall, Blackfriars, and that stood invitingly open. So about February they abandoned the Hope, and wrote a letter of explanation to Edward Alleyn: "I hope you mistake not our removal from the Bankside. We stood the intemperate weather, 'till more intemperate Mr. Meade thrust us over, taking the day from us which by course was ours."[558]
After the company quarreled with Meade and deserted the Hope, there is no evidence that the building was again used for plays. It became associated almost entirely with animal-baiting, fencing, feats of activity, and such-like performances; and gradually the very name "Hope," which was identified with acting, gave way to the earlier designation "Bear Garden." In 1632 the author of Holland's Leaguer remarks that "wild beasts and gladiators did most possess it"; and such must have been the chief use of the building down to 1642, when animal-baiting was prohibited by Parliament.[559]
On January 14, 1647, at the disposition of the Church lands, the Hope was sold for £1783 15s.[560]