Chapter 15

WHITEFRIARS

The district of Whitefriars, lying just outside the city wall to the west, and extending from Fleet Street to the Thames, was once in the possession of the order of White Friars, and the site of an important monastery; but in Elizabeth's time the church had disappeared, most of the ancient buildings had been dismantled, and in their place, as Stow tells us, were "many fair houses builded, lodgings for noblemen and others." Since at the dissolution of the monasteries the property had come into the possession of the Crown, it was not under the jurisdiction of the London Common Council--a fact which made Whitefriars, like Blackfriars, a desirable refuge for players seeking to escape the hostility of the city authorities.[519] One might naturally expect the appearance of playing here at an early date, but the evidence is slight.[520]

[Footnote 519: Whitefriars passed under city control in 1608 by grant of King James I, but certain rights remained, notably that of sanctuary. This has been celebrated in Shadwell's play, _The Squire of Alsatia_, and in Scott's romance, _The Fortunes of Nigel_.]

[Footnote 520: Prynne, in _Histriomastix_ (1633), p. 491, quotes a passage from Richard Reulidge's _Monster Lately Found Out and Discovered_ (1628), in which there is a reference to a playhouse as existing in Whitefriars "not long after" 1580. By "playhouse" Reulidge possibly meant an inn used for acting; but the whole passage, written by a Puritan after the lapse of nearly half a century, is open to grave suspicion, especially in its details. Again Richard Flecknoe, in _A Short Discourse of the English Stage_ (1664), states that the Children of the Chapel Royal acted in Whitefriars. But that he confused the word "Whitefriars" with "Blackfriars" is shown by the rest of his statement.]

The first appearance of a regular playhouse in Whitefriars dates from the early years of King James's reign. With our present knowledge we cannot fix the date exactly, yet we can feel reasonably certain that it was not long before 1607--probably about 1605.

The chief spirit in the organization of the new playhouse seems to have been the poet Michael Drayton, who had secured a patent from King James to "erect" a company of child actors, to be known as "The Children of His Majesty's Revels."[521] Obviously his hope was to make the Children of His Majesty's Revels at Whitefriars rival the successful Children of Her Majesty's Revels at Blackfriars. In this ambitious enterprise he associated with himself a wealthy London merchant, Thomas Woodford, whom we know as having been interested in various theatrical investments.[522] These two men leased from Lord Buckhurst for a short period of time a building described as a "mansion house" formerly a part of the Whitefriars monastery: "the rooms of which are thirteen in number, three below, and ten above; that is to say, the great hall, the kitchen by the yard, and a cellar, with all the rooms from the Master of the Revells' office as the same are now severed and divided."[523] The "great hall" here mentioned, once the refectory of the monks, was made into the playhouse. Its "great" size may be inferred from the fact that there were ten rooms "above"; and its general excellence may be inferred from the fact that it was leased at £50 per annum, whereas Blackfriars, in a more desirable location and fully equipped as a theatre, was rented for only £40.

[Footnote 521: Fleay, Murray, and others are wrong in assuming that this troupe was merely a continuation of the Paul's Boys. So far as I can discover, there is no official record of the patent issued to Drayton; but that such a patent was issued is clear from the lawsuits of 1609, printed by Greenstreet in _The New Shakspere Society's Transactions_ (1887-90), p. 269.]

[Footnote 522: He was part proprietor of the Red Bull. In the case of Witter _v._ Heminges and Condell he was examined as a witness (see Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p. 74), but what connection, if any, he had with the Globe does not appear.]

[Footnote 523: Greenstreet, _The New Shakspere Society's Transactions_ (1887-90), p. 275.]

From an early seventeenth-century survey of the Whitefriars property (see the opposite page), we are able to place the building very exactly. The part of the monastery used as a playhouse--the Frater--was the southern cloister, marked in the plan, "My Lords Cloyster." The "kitchen by the yard" mentioned in the document just quoted is clearly represented in the survey by the "Scullere." The size of the playhouse is hard to ascertain, but it was approximately thirty-five feet in width and eighty-five feet in length.[524] In the London of to-day it extended roughly from Bouverie Street to Ashen-tree Court, and lay just north of George Yard.

[Footnote 524: The stipple walls, in the original survey colored gray, were of stone; the thinner walls of the adjoining "tenements," in the original colored red, were of brick.]

Of the career of the Children under the joint management of Drayton and Woodford we know almost nothing. But in March, 1608, a new management assumed charge of the troupe, and from this point on the history of the playhouse is reasonably clear.

The original lease of the building, it seems, expired on March 5, 1608. But before the expiration--in the latter part of 1607 or in the early part of 1608--Drayton and Woodford secured a new lease on the property for six years, eight months, and twenty days, or until December 25 (one of the four regular feasts of the year), 1614. In February, 1608, after having secured this renewal of the lease, Thomas Woodford suddenly determined to retire from the enterprise; and he sold his moiety to one David Lording Barry,[525] author of the play _Ram Alley_. Barry and Drayton at once made plans to divide the property into six shares, so as to distribute the expenses and the risks as well as the hoped-for profits. Barry induced his friend, George Androwes, to purchase one share, and hence the lawsuit from which we derive most of our knowledge of the playhouse. From this suit I quote below the more significant part relating to the new organization:

Humbly complaining, sheweth unto your honorable lordship, your daily orator, George Androwes, of London, silkweaver, that whereas one Lordinge Barry, about February which was in the year of our Lord 1607 [i.e., 1608], pretending himself to be lawfully possessed of one moiety of a messuage or mansion house, parcel of the late dissolved monastery called the Whitefriars, in Fleet Street, in the suburbs of London, by and under a lease made thereof, about March then next following, from the right honorable Robert, Lord Buckhurst, unto one Michael Drayton and Thomas Woodford, for the term of six years, eight months, and twenty days then following, for and under the yearly rent of fifty pounds reserved thereupon; the moiety of which said lease and premisses, by mean assignment from the said Thomas Woodford, was lawfully settled in the said Lordinge Barry, as he did pretend, together with the moiety of diverse play-books, apparel, and other furnitures and necessaries used and employed in and about the said messuage and the Children of the Revels,[526] there being, in making and setting forth plays, shows, and interludes, and such like. And the said Lordinge Barry ... being desirous to join others with him in the interest of the same, who might be contributory to such future charges as should arise in setting forth of plays and shows there, did thereupon ... solicit and persuade your orator to take from the said Barry an assignment of a sixth part of the messuage, premisses, and profits aforesaid.

[Footnote 525: By a stupid error often called Lodowick Barry. For an explanation of the error see an article by the present writer in _Modern Philology_, April, 1912, IX, 567. Mr. W.J. Lawrence has recently shown (_Studies in Philology_, University of North Carolina, April, 1917) that David Barry was the eldest son of the ninth Viscount Buttevant, and was called "Lording" by courtesy. At the time he became interested in the Whitefriars Playhouse he was twenty-two years old. He died in 1610.]

[Footnote 526: At this time the Children of Blackfriars had lost their patent, so that the Children at Whitefriars were the only Revels troupe.]

This passage gives us an interesting glimpse of Drayton and Barry in their efforts to organize a syndicate for exploiting the Children of His Majesty's Revels. They induced several other persons to buy half-shares; and then they engaged, as manager of the Children, Martin Slaiter,[527] a well-known and thoroughly experienced actor. For his services as manager, Slaiter was to receive one whole share in the organization, and lodgings for himself and his family of ten in the building. The syndicate thus formed was made up of four whole-sharers, Michael Drayton, Lordinge Barry, George Androwes, and Martin Slaiter, and four half-sharers, William Trevell, William Cooke, Edward Sibthorpe, and John Mason.[528]

[Footnote 527: Also spelled Slater, Slaughter, Slather, Slawghter. Henslowe often refers to him as "Martin."]

[Footnote 528: Mr. Wallace (_The Century Magazine_, 1910, LXXX, 511) incorrectly says that Whitefriars was held by "six equal sharers."]

The "great hall" had, of course, already been fitted up for the acting of plays, and the new lessees did not at first contemplate any expenditure on the building. Later, however,--if we can believe Androwes,--they spent a not inconsiderable sum for improvements. The Children already had certain plays, and to these were added some new ones. Among the plays in their repertoire were Day's _Humour Out of Breath_, Middleton's _Family of Love_, Armin's _The Two Maids of Moreclacke_, Sharpham's _Cupid's Whirligig_, Markham and Machin's _The Dumb Knight_, Barry's _Ram Alley_, and Mason's _The Turk_. The last two writers were sharers, and it seems likely that Drayton, also a sharer and experienced as a dramatist, contributed some plays towards the stock of the company.

The new organization, with bright prospects for success, was launched in March, 1608. Almost at once, however, it began to suffer from ill luck. In April the Children at Blackfriars, by their performance of _Byron_, caused King James to close all playhouses in London. How long he kept them closed we do not know, but we find the lessees of Whitefriars joining with the three other London companies in seeking to have the inhibition raised. As the French Ambassador informed his Government: "Pour lever cette défense, quatres autres compagnies, qui y sont encore, offrent déjà cent mille francs, lesquels pourront bien leur en ordonner la permission."[529]

[Footnote 529: Letter of M. De La Boderie, the French Ambassador to England; quoted by E.K. Chambers, _Modern Language Review_, IV, 159.]

Even if this inhibition was shortly raised, the Whitefriars organization was not much better off, for in July the plague set in with unusual violence, and acting was seriously if not wholly interrupted for the next twelve months and more. As a result, the profits from the theatre did not come up to the "fair and false flattering speeches" which at the outset Barry had made to prospective investors, and this led to bad feeling among the sharers.

The company at Blackfriars, of course, was suffering in a similar way. On August 8, 1608, their playhouse was surrendered to the owner, Richard Burbage, and the Children being thus left without a home were dispersed. Early in 1609, probably in February, Robert Keysar (the manager of the Blackfriars troupe), Philip Rosseter, and others secured the lease of the Whitefriars Playhouse from Drayton and the rest of the discontented sharers, and reassembled there the Children of Blackfriars. What became of the Whitefriars troupe we do not know; but it is highly likely that the new organization took over the better actors from Drayton's company. At any rate, we do not hear again of the Children of His Majesty's Revels.

When Keysar and this new troupe of child-actors moved into Whitefriars, Slaiter and his family of ten were expelled from the building. This led to a lawsuit, and explains much in the legal documents printed by Greenstreet. Slaiter complained with no little feeling that he had been "riotously, willfully, violently, and unlawfully, contrary to the said articles and pretended agreement [by which he had been not only engaged as a manager, but also guaranteed a home for the period of "all the term of years in the lease"], put and kept out of his said rooms of habitation for him, this defendant, and his family, and all other his means of livelihood, thereby leaving this defendant and his whole family, being ten in number, to the world to seek for bread and other means to live by."[530]

[Footnote 530: Greenstreet, _The New Shakspere Society's Transactions_ (1887-90), p. 283.]

The new Whitefriars troupe acted five plays at Court during the winter of 1609-10. Payments therefor were made to Robert Keysar, and the company was referred to merely as "The Children of the Whitefriars." But on January 4, 1610, the company secured a royal patent authorizing the use of the title "The Children of the Queen's Revels."[531] The patent was granted to Robert Daborne, Philip Rosseter, John Tarbock, Richard Jones, and Robert Browne; but Keysar, though not named in the grant, was still one of the important sharers.[532]

[Footnote 531: Printed in The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 271.]

[Footnote 532: See Keysar _v._ Burbage _et al._, printed by Mr. Wallace, in his _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, pp. 80 ff.]

The troupe well deserved the patronage of the Queen. Keysar described the Blackfriars Children whom he had reorganized as "a company of the most expert and skillful actors within the realm of England, to the number of eighteen or twenty persons, all or most of them, trained up in that service in the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth for ten years together."[533] And to these, as I have pointed out, it seems likely that the best members of the bankrupt Children of His Majesty's Revels had been added. The chief actor of the new organization was Nathaniel Field, whose histrionic ability placed him beside Edward Alleyn and Richard Burbage. One of the first plays he was called upon to act in his new theatre was Jonson's brilliant comedy, _Epicoene_, in which he took the leading rôle.

[Footnote 533: _Ibid._, p. 90.]

The idea then occurred to Rosseter to secure a monopoly on child-acting and on private playhouses. The Children of His Majesty's Revels had ceased to exist. The Blackfriars Playhouse had been closed by royal command, and its lease had been surrendered to its owner, Richard Burbage. The only rival to the Children at Whitefriars was the troupe of Paul's Boys acting in their singing-school behind the Cathedral. How Rosseter attempted to buy them off is thus recorded by Richard Burbage and John Heminges:

There being, as these defendants verily think, but only three private playhouses in the city of London, the one of which being in the Blackfriars and in the hands of these defendants or of their assigns, one other being in the Whitefriars in the hands or occupation of the said complainant himself [Keysar], his partners [Rosseter, _et al._], or assigns, and the third near St. Paul's Church, then being in the hands of one Mr. Pierce, but then unused for a playhouse. One Mr. Rosseter, a partner of the said complainant [Keysar] dealt for and compounded with the said Mr. Pierce [Master of the Paul's Boys] to the only benefit of him, the said Rosseter, the now complainant [Keysar], the rest of their partners and company, and without the privity, knowledge, or consent of these defendants [the King's Company], or any of them, and that thereby they, the said complainant [Keysar] and the said Rosseter and their partners and company might advance their gains and profit to be had and made in their said house in Whitefriars, that there might be a cessation of playing and plays to be acted in the said house near St. Paul's Church aforesaid, for which the said Rosseter compounded with the said Pierce to give him, the said Pierce, twenty pounds per annum.[534]

[Footnote 534: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p. 95.]

By this means Rosseter disposed of the competition of the Paul's Boys. But, although he secured a monopoly on child-acting, he failed to secure a monopoly on private playhouses, for shortly after he had sealed this bargain with Pierce, the powerful King's Men opened up at Blackfriars. Rosseter promptly requested them to pay half the "dead rent" to Pierce, which they good-naturedly agreed to do.

In 1613 Whitefriars was rented by certain London apprentices for the performance "at night" of Robert Taylor's _The Hog Hath Lost His Pearl_. The episode is narrated by Sir Henry Wotton in a letter to Sir Edmund Bacon:

On Sunday last, at night, and no longer, some sixteen apprentices (of what sort you shall guess by the rest of the story) having secretly learnt a new play without book,[535] entitled _The Hog Hath Lost His Pearl_, took up the Whitefriars for their theatre, and having invited thither (as it should seem) rather their mistresses than their masters, who were all to enter _per buletini_ for a note of distinction from ordinary comedians. Towards the end of the play the sheriffs (who by chance had heard of it) came in (as they say) and carried some six or seven of them to perform the last act at Bridewell. The rest are fled. Now it is strange to hear how sharp-witted the city is, for they will needs have Sir John Swinerton, the Lord Mayor, be meant by the Hog, and the late Lord Treasurer by the Pearl.[536]

[Footnote 535: Miss Gildersleeve, in her valuable _Government Regulation of the Elizabethan Drama_, p. 112, says: "Just what is the meaning of 'a new Play without Book' no one seems to have conjectured." And she develops the theory that "it refers to the absence of a licensed play-book," etc. The phrase "to learn without book" meant simply "to memorize."]

[Footnote 536: _Reliquiæ Wottonianæ_ (ed. 1672), p. 402. The letter is dated merely 1612-13. In connection with the play one should study _The Hector of Germany_, 1615.]

Apparently the Children of the Queen's Revels continued successfully at Whitefriars until March, 1613. On that date Rosseter agreed with Henslowe to join the Revels with the Lady Elizabeth's Men then acting at the Swan. The new organization, following the example of the King's Men, used Whitefriars as a winter, and the Swan as a summer, house. Thus for a time at least Whitefriars came under the management of Henslowe.

Rosseter's lease of the building was to expire in the following year. He seems to have made plans--possibly with the assistance of Henslowe--to erect in Whitefriars a more suitable playhouse for the newly organized company; at least that is a plausible interpretation of the following curious entry in Sir George Buc's Office Book: "July 13, 1613, for a license to erect a new playhouse in Whitefriars, &c. £20."[537] But the new playhouse thus projected never was built, doubtless because of strong local opposition. Instead, Henslowe erected for the company a public playhouse on the Bankside, known as "The Hope."

[Footnote 537: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 52.]

In March, 1614, at the expiration of one year, Rosseter withdrew from his partnership with Henslowe. On December 25, 1614, his lease of the Whitefriars expired, and he was apparently unable to renew it. Thereupon he attempted to fit up a private playhouse in the district of Blackfriars, and on June 3, 1615, he actually secured a royal license to do so. But in this effort, too, he was foiled.[538]

[Footnote 538: See the chapter on "Rosseter's Blackfriars." The documents concerned in this venture are printed in The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 277.]

After this we hear little or nothing of the Whitefriars Playhouse. Yet the building may occasionally have been used for dramatic purposes. Cunningham says: "The case of Trevill _v._ Woodford, in the Court of Requests, informs us that plays were performed at the Whitefriars Theatre as late as 1621; Sir Anthony Ashley, the then landlord of the house, entering the theatre in that year, and turning the players out of doors, on pretense that half a year's rent was yet unpaid to him."[539] I have not been able to examine this document. Neither Fleay nor Murray has found any trace of a company at Whitefriars after Rosseter's departure; hence for all practical purposes we may regard the Whitefriars Playhouse as having come to the end of its career in 1614.

[Footnote 539: _The Shakespeare Society's Papers_, IV, 90. The document printed by Collier in _New Facts Regarding the Life of Shakespeare_ (1835), p. 44, as from a manuscript in his possession, is, I think, an obvious forgery.]