London in the Time of the Tudors

by Walter Besant

THE BEAR GARDEN AND THE GLOBE THEATRE
From Visscher’s Panorama of London.

The Londoners might change their religion, but they were not going to change their sports. They were Protestant instead of Catholic; but they kept up their bear-baiting, their bull-baiting, their archery, their wrestlings, their fencing, their quarter-staff play, their running at the quintain, their feats of tumbling, their Morris dances and mummings, their plays and interludes. But the Reformation killed the Miracle Play. The play of modern manners, or the tragedy, or the farce, took the place of the religious play. And instead of acting on a stage in a churchyard, the players now began to act in the broad and ample courtyard of the inn, whose galleries afforded room for people to look on. The authorities looked on the play from the beginning with eyes of disfavour: the actor was considered a masterless man; he had no trade; he was a strolling vagabond; he lived upon the largesse of those who looked on at his performance; he was a buffoon who would assume any character at will to make the people laugh and cry; he must be able to dance and posture like the tumblers on the road. Again, all the idle people in the City assembled to see the play; all the vicious people crowded to take advantage of the throng; in the theatre every day arose disorders and brawls; young men of sober parentage were seduced into becoming players. Witness the words of Prynne:—

“Our own experience can sufficiently inform us, that plays and playhouses are the frequent causes of many murders, duels, quarrels, debates; occasioned sometimes by reason of some difference about a box, a seat, a place, upon the stage; sometimes by intruding too boldly into some female’s company; sometimes by reason of some amorous, scurrilous, or disgraceful words, that are uttered of or to some female spectators; sometimes by reason of some speeches or passages of the play, particularly applied to some persons present or absent; sometimes by reason of some husband, or co-rival’s jealousy, or affront, whose wife, or mistress, being there in person, is perhaps solicited, abused, or jeared at in his presence; sometimes by reason of the apprentices who resort to playhouses, especially on Shrove Tuesday; sometimes by means of other accidents and occasions. Many have been the murders, more the quarrels, the duels, that have grown from our stage-plays, whose large encomiums of rash valour, duels, fortitude, generosity, impatientcy, homicides, tyranny, and revenge, do so exasperate men’s raging passions, and make them so impatient of the very smallest injury, that nothing can satisfy, can expiate, but the offender’s blood. Hence it is that some players, some play-haunters, now living, not satisfied with the murder of one, have embrued their barbarous un-christian hands in the blood of two, of three, if not of four several men. And so far are they from ruing the odiousness of these their bloody deeds, that they glory in the number of their murders as the very trophies of their valour.”

The Queen at the beginning of her reign issued a proclamation to prevent players performing without license, and from handling politics or religion. In 1572 the Mayor forbade the acting of plays in London on the ground of the Plague and the danger of infection. Harrison says:—

“Plaies are banished for a time out of London, lest the resort unto them should ingender a plague, or rather disperse it, being already begonne. Would to God these comon plaies were exiled altogether, as seminaries of impiety, and their theatres pulled downe, as no better then houses of bawdrie. It is an evident token of a wicked time when plaiers waxe so riche that they can build suche houses. As moche I wish also to our comon beare-baitings used oin the sabaothe daies.” (Holinshed’s Chronicles.)

In 1574 the first steps were taken towards the regulation of players and plays. The preamble to the ordinances is set forth by Maitland, with the ordinances themselves, as follows:—

“The citizens in Common-Council observing, that the antient and innocent Recreation of Stage-Plays or Interludes, which in former Days ingenious Tradesmen and Gentlemen’s Servants sometimes practised, to expose Vice, or to represent the noble Actions of their Ancestors, at certain Festival Times, or in private Houses at Weddings, and at other Splendid Entertainments, for their own Profit, was now in process of Time become an Occupation; and that many there were that followed it for a livelihood; and, which was worse, that it was become the Occasion of much Sin and Evil; great Multitudes of People, especially Youth, in Queen Elizabeth’s Reign, resorting to these Plays; and being commonly acted on Sundays and Festivals, the Churches were forsaken, and the Playhouses thronged, and great Disorders and Inconvenience were found to ensue to the City thereby, forasmuch as it occasioned Frays and evil Practices of Incontinency; Great Inns were used for this Purpose, which had secret Chambers and Places, as well as open Stages and Galleries; where Maids, especially Orphans, and good Citizen’s Children, under Age, were inveigled and allured to privy and unmeet Contracts; and where unchaste, uncomely and unshamefaced Speeches and Doings were published; where there was an unthrifty Waste of the Money of the Poor; sundry robberies, by picking and cutting Purses, uttering of popular and seditious Matter, many corruptions of Youth, and other Enormities; besides sundry Slaughters and Maimings of the Queen’s Subjects, by falling of Scaffolds, Frames, and Stages, and by Engines, Weapons, and Powder, used in the Plays; and believing that, in the time of God’s Visitation by the Plague, such Assemblies of the People in Throngs and Presses were very dangerous for spreading the Infection; they regulated these Plays, lest the People, upon God’s gracious withdrawing of the Sickness, should, with sudden forgetting of the Visitation, without Fear of God’s Wrath, and without some Respect of those good and politick Means (as the Words of the Act ran) that were ordained for the Preservation of the Commonwealth and People in Health and good Order, return to the undue Use of such Enormities. Therefore, for the lawful, honest, comely Use of Plays, Pastimes, and Recreations in good Sort permitted by the Authority of the Common Council, it was enacted:—

‘I. That no Play should be openly played within the Liberty of the City, wherein should be uttered any Words, Examples, or Doings of any Unchastity, Sedition, or such-like unfit and uncomely Matter, upon Pain of Imprisonment for the space of fourteen Days, and 5£ for every such offence. II. That no Innkeeper, Tavernkeeper, or other Person whatsoever, within the Liberties of the City, shall shew or play, or cause to be shewed or played, within his House or Yard, any Play, which shall not first be perused and allowed by the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen’s Order. III. No Person shall suffer any Plays to be played in his House or Yard, whereof he then shall have Rule, but only such Persons, and in such Places, as, upon good Consideration, shall be thereunto permitted and allowed by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. IV. Nor shall take and use any such Benefit or Advantage of such Permission, until such person be bound to the Chamberlain of London, in certain Sums, for the Keeping of good Order, and avoiding of Discords and inconveniences. V. Neither shall use or exercise such Licence or Permission at any Time, in which the same shall be by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen restrained, or commanded to stay and cease, in any usual Time of Divine Service on the Sunday or Holiday, or receive any to that Purpose in Time of Service, to the same, upon Pain to forfeit for every Offence 5£. VI. And every Person to be licensed shall, during the Time of such continuance of License, pay to the Use of the Poor in Hospitals of the City, or of the Poor visited with Sickness, such Sums and Payments, as between the Mayor and Aldermen, and the Person to be licensed, shall be agreed upon; upon Pain that, on the Want of every such Payment, such License shall be utterly void. VII. All sums and Forfeitures to be incurred for any offence against this Act, and all Forfeitures of Bonds, shall be employed to the Relief of the Poor of the Hospitals, or of the Poor infected or diseased in the City: And the Chamberlain, in his own Name, shall have and recover the same, to the Purposes aforesaid, in the Court of the outer Chamber of Guildhall, London, called The Mayors Court.

‘Provided, That this Act shall not extend to Plays shewed in private Houses, Lodgings of a Nobleman, Citizen, or Gentleman, which shall have the same then played in his Presence for the Festivity of any Marriage, Assembly of Friends, or other like Cause, without publick or common collection of Money of the Auditors or Beholders.’” (Maitland, vol. i. pp. 262–263.)

Since the players could act no more in the City, there was nothing for them but to go outside. In 1574, James Burbage and some of the Earl of Leicester’s Company obtained the Queen’s license to act plays in any part of England. After receiving this license Burbage proceeded to build the first theatre, the house called simply “The Theatre.” This theatre was built outside the jurisdiction of the City, close to the remains of the Holywell Priory. After the Dissolution the church of this House was pulled down with most of the buildings. Houses were built upon its site, and the ruins themselves gradually disappeared. At the south-west of these ruins, on a site now marked by Dean’s Mews, Holywell Lane, Burbage built his theatre at a cost of £600, the money being advanced by his father-in-law. The theatre was in shape either circular or oval, probably the former. It was built for all kind of shows and entertainments. If a large space was wanted the whole of the area could be taken by the performers; raised galleries ran round the house; for the performance of a play, a stage was erected in the middle; from the nature of the case there could be no question of any scenery. The house was built of wood and is said to have been handsomely decorated; the central area was without a roof. There were troubles and quarrels about the lease of the house, which was taken down in the year 1598–99. The wood and timber of which the house was built were removed to Bankside, where they were used for the erection of the Globe Theatre.

The second theatre of London was that called The Curtain. It is a fact which illustrates the popularity of Finsbury Fields as a place of resort that there should have been a second theatre erected so close to the first. The Curtain Theatre was built on the south side of Holywell Lane, Shoreditch. In the house, too, feats of arms, sword-play, quarter-staff, and other games took place.

The third theatre (if we count The Globe as a continuation of The Theatre) was The Fortune, built near Golden Lane, Cripplegate.