Chapter 7

THE BANKSIDE AND THE BEAR GARDEN

From time out of mind the suburb of London known as "the Bankside"--the term was loosely applied to all the region south of the river and west of the bridge--had been identified with sports and pastimes. On Sundays, holidays, and other festive occasions, the citizens, their wives, and their apprentices were accustomed to seek outdoor entertainment across the river, going thither in boats (of which there was an incredible number, converting "the silver sliding Thames" almost into a Venetian Grand Canal), or strolling on foot over old London Bridge. On the Bankside the visitors could find maypoles for dancing, butts for the practice of archery, and broad fields for athletic games; or, if so disposed, they could visit bull-baitings, bear-baitings, fairs, stage-plays, shows, motions, and other amusements of a similar sort.

Not all the attractions of the Bankside, however, were so innocent. For here, in a long row bordering the river's edge, were situated the famous stews of the city, licensed by authority of the Bishop of Winchester; and along with the stews, of course, such places as thrive in a district devoted to vice--houses for gambling, for coney-catching, and for evil practices of various sorts. The less said of this feature of the Bankside the better.

More needs to be said of the bull- and bear-baiting, which probably constituted the chief amusement of the crowds from the city, and which was later closely associated with the drama and with playhouses. This sport, now surviving in the bull-fights of Spain and of certain Spanish-American countries, was in former times one of the most popular species of entertainment cultivated by the English. Even so early as 1174, William Fitz-Stephen, in his _Descriptio Nobilissimæ Ciuitatis Londoniæ_, under the heading _De Ludis_, records that the London citizens diverted themselves on holiday occasions with the baiting of beasts, when "strong horn-goring bulls, or immense bears, contend fiercely with dogs that are pitted against them."[177] In some towns the law required that bulls intended for the butcher-shop should first be baited for the amusement of the public before being led to the slaughter-house. Erasmus speaks of the "many herds of bears" which he saw in England "maintained for the purpose of baiting." The baiting was accomplished by tying the bulls or bears to stakes, or when possible releasing them in an amphitheatre, and pitting against them bull-dogs, bred through centuries for strength and ferocity. Occasionally other animals, as ponies and apes, were brought into the fight, and the sport was varied in miscellaneous ways. Some of the animals, by unusual courage or success, endeared themselves to the heart of the sporting public. Harry Hunks, George Stone, and Sacarson were famous bears in Shakespeare's time; and the names of many of the "game bulls" and "mastiff dogs" became household words throughout London.

[Footnote 177: "Pingues tauri cornupetæ, seu vrsi immanes, cum obiectis depugnant canibus."]

The home of this popular sport was the Bankside. The earliest extant map of Southwark,[178] drawn about 1542, shows in the very centre of High Street, just opposite London Bridge, a circular amphitheatre marked "The Bull Ring"; and doubtless there were other places along the river devoted to the same purpose. The baiting of bears was more closely identified with the Manor of Paris Garden,[179] that section of the Bank lying to the west of the Clink, over towards the marshes of Lambeth. The association of bear-baiting with this particular section was probably due to the fact that in early days the butchers of London used a part of the Manor of Paris Garden for the disposal of their offal,[180] and the entrails and other refuse from the slaughtered beasts furnished cheap and abundant food for the bears and dogs. The Earl of Manchester wrote to the Lord Mayor and the Common Council, in 1664, that he had been informed by the master of His Majesty's Game of Bears and Bulls, and others, that "the Butcher's Company had formerly caused all their offal in Eastcheap and Newgate Market to be conveyed by the beadle of the Company unto two barrow houses, conveniently placed on the river side, for the provision and feeding of the King's Game of Bears."

[Footnote 178: The map is reproduced in facsimile by Rendle as a frontispiece to _Old Southwark and its People_.]

[Footnote 179: Or Parish Garden, possibly the more correct form. For the early history of the Manor see William Bray, _The History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey_, III, 530; Wallace, in _Englische Studien_ (1911), XLIII, 341, note 3; Ordish, _Early London Theatres_, p. 125.]

[Footnote 180: Blount, in his _Glossographia_ (1681), p. 473, says of Paris Garden: "So called from Robert de Paris, who had a house and garden there in Richard II.'s time; who by proclamation, ordained that the butchers of London should buy that garden for receipt of their garbage and entrails of beasts, to the end the city might not be annoyed thereby."]

At first, apparently, the baiting of bears was held in open places,[181] with the bear tied to a stake and the spectators crowding around, or at best standing on temporary scaffolds. But later, permanent amphitheatres were provided. In Braun and Hogenberg's _Map of London_, drawn between 1554 and 1558, and printed in 1572, we find two well-appointed amphitheatres, with stables and kennels attached, labeled respectively "The Bear Baiting" and "The Bull Baiting." When these amphitheatres were erected we do not know, but probably they do not antedate by much the middle of the century.[182]

[Footnote 181: See Gilpin's _Life of Cranmer_ for a description of a bear-baiting before the King held on or near the river's edge. See also the proclamation of Henry VIII in 1546 against the stews, which implies the non-existence of regular amphitheatres.]

[Footnote 182: Sir Sidney Lee (_Shakespeare's England_, II, 428) says that one of the amphitheatres was erected in 1526. I do not know his authority; he was apparently misled by one of Rendle's statements. Neither of the amphitheatres is shown in Wyngaerde's careful _Map of London_ made about 1530-1540; possibly they are referred to in the _Diary_ of Henry Machyn under the date of May 26, 1554. The old "Bull Ring" in High Street had then disappeared, and the baiting of bulls was henceforth more or less closely associated, as was natural, with the baiting of bears.]

It is to be noted that at this time neither "The Bull Baiting" nor "The Bear Baiting" is in the Manor of Paris Garden, but close by in the Liberty of the Clink. Yet the name "Paris Garden" continued to be used of the animal-baiting place for a century and more. Possibly the identification of bear-baiting with Paris Garden was of such long standing that Londoners could not readily adjust themselves to the change; they at first confused the terms "Bear Garden" and "Paris Garden," and later extended the term "Paris Garden" to include that section of the Clink devoted to the baiting of animals.

The two amphitheatres, it seems, were used until 1583, when a serious catastrophe put an end to one if not both of them. Stow, in his _Annals_, gives the following account of the accident:

The same thirteenth day of January, being Sunday, about four of the clock in the afternoon, the old and underpropped scaffolds round about the Bear Garden, commonly called Paris Garden, on the south side of the river of Thamis over against the city of London, overcharged with people, fell suddenly down, whereby to the number of eight persons, men and women, were slain, and many others sore hurt and bruised to the shortening of their lives.[183]

[Footnote 183: Stow, _Annals_ (ed. 1631), p. 696.]

Stubbes, the Puritan, writes in his more heightened style:

Upon the 13 day of January last, being the Saboth day, _Anno_ 1583, the people, men, women, and children, both young and old, an infinite number, flocking to those infamous places where these wicked exercises are usually practised (for they have their courts, gardens, and yards for the same purpose), when they were all come together and mounted aloft upon their scaffolds and galleries, and in the midst of all their jolity and pastime, all the whole building (not one stick standing) fell down with a most wonderful and fearful confusion. So that either two or three hundred men, women, and children (by estimation), whereof seven were killed dead, some were wounded, some lamed, and otherwise bruised and crushed almost to death. Some had their brains dashed out, some their heads all to-squashed, some their legs broken, some their arms, some their backs, some their shoulders, some one hurt, some another.[184]

[Footnote 184: Philip Stubbes, _The Anatomie of Abuses_ (ed. Furnivall), p. 179.]

The building, which the Reverend John Field described as "old and rotten,"[185] was a complete ruin; "not a stick was left so high as the bear was fastened to." The Puritan preachers loudly denounced the unholy spectacles, pointing to the catastrophe as a clear warning from the Almighty; and the city authorities earnestly besought the Privy Council to put an end to such performances. Yet the owners of the building set to work at once, and soon had erected a new house, stronger and larger and more pretentious than before. The Lord Mayor, in some indignation, wrote to the Privy Council on July 3, 1583, that "the scaffolds are new builded, and the multitudes on the Saboth day called together in most excessive number."[186]

[Footnote 185: _A Godly Exhortation by Occasion of the Late Judgement of God, Shewed at Paris-Garden_ (London, 1583). Another account of the disaster may be found in Vaughan's _Golden Grove_ (1600).]

[Footnote 186: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 65.]

The New Bear Garden, octagonal in form, was probably modeled after the playhouses in Shoreditch, and made in all respects superior to the old amphitheatre which it supplanted.[187] We find that it was reckoned among the sights of the city, and was exhibited to distinguished foreign visitors. For example, when Sir Walter Raleigh undertook to entertain the French Ambassador, he carried him to view the monuments in Westminster Abbey and to see the new Bear Garden.

[Footnote 187: What became of the other amphitheatre labeled "The Bull Baiting" I do not know. Stow, in his _Survey_, 1598, says: "Now to return to the west bank, there be two bear gardens, the old and new places, wherein be kept bears, bulls, and other beasts to be baited."]

A picture of the building is to be seen in the Hondius _View of London_, 1610 (see page 149), and in the small inset views from the title-pages of Holland's _Her[Greek: ô]ologia_, 1620, and Baker's _Chronicle_, 1643 (see page 147), all three of which probably go back to a view of London made between 1587 and 1597, and now lost. Another representation of the structure is to be seen in the Delaram portrait of King James, along with the Rose and the Globe (see opposite page 246). The best representation of the building, however, is in Visscher's _View of London_ (see page 127), printed in 1616, but drawn several years earlier.[188]

[Footnote 188: For a fuller discussion of these various maps and views see pages 146, 248, and 328. Norden's map of 1594 (see page 147) merely indicates the site of the building.]

Although we are not directly concerned with the history of the Bear Garden,[189] a few descriptions of "the royal game of bears, bulls, and dogs" drawn from contemporary sources will be of interest and of specific value for the discussion of the Hope Playhouse--itself both a bear garden and a theatre.

[Footnote 189: For such a history the reader is referred to Ordish, _Early London Theatres_; Greg, _Henslowe's Diary_, II, and _Henslowe Papers_; Young, _The History of Dulwich College_; Rendle, _The Bankside_, and _The Playhouses at Bankside_.]

Robert Laneham, in his _Description of the Entertainment at Kenilworth_ (1575), writes thus of a baiting of bears before the Queen:

Well, syr, the Bearz wear brought foorth intoo the Coourt, the dogs set too them.... It was a Sport very pleazaunt of theez beastz; to see the bear with his pink nyez leering after hiz enemiez approoch, the nimbleness & wayt of ye dog to take his auauntage, and the fors & experiens of the bear agayn to auoyd the assauts: if he war bitten in one place, how he woold pynch in an oother to get free: that if he wear taken onez, then what shyft, with byting, with clawing, with rooring, tossing, & tumbling he woold woork to wynd hym self from them: and when he waz lose, to shake his earz tywse or thryse, wyth the blud and the slauer aboout his fiznomy, waz a matter of a goodly releef.

John Houghton, in his _Collection for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade_,[190] gives a vivid account of the baiting of the bull. He says:

The bull takes great care to watch his enemy, which is a mastiff dog (commonly used to the sport) with a short nose that his teeth may take the better hold; this dog, if right, will creep upon his belly that he may, if possible, get the bull by the nose; which the bull as carefully strives to defend by laying it close to the ground, where his horns are also ready to do what in them lies to toss the dog; and this is the true sport. But if more dogs than one come at once, or they are cowardly and come under his legs, he will, if he can, stamp their guts out. I believe I have seen a dog tossed by a bull thirty, if not forty foot high; and when they are tossed, either higher or lower, the men above strive to catch them on their shoulders, lest the fall might mischief the dogs. They commonly lay sand about that if they fall upon the ground it may be the easier. Notwithstanding this care a great many dogs are killed, more have their limbs broke, and some hold so fast that, by the bull's swinging them, their teeth are often broken out.... The true courage and art is to hold the bull by the nose 'till he roars, which a courageous bull scorns to do.... This is a sport the English much delight in; and not only the baser sort, but the greatest lords and ladies.

[Footnote 190: No. 108, August, 1694. Quoted by J.P. Malcolm, _Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London from the Roman Invasion to the Year 1700_ (London, 1811), p. 433.]

An attendant upon the Duke of Nexara, who visited England in 1544, wrote the following account of a bear-baiting witnessed in London:

In another part of the city we saw seven bears, some of them of great size. They were led out every day to an enclosure, where being tied with a long rope, large and intrepid dogs are thrown to them, in order that they may bite and make them furious. It is no bad sport to see them fight, and the assaults they give each other. To each of the large bears are matched three or four dogs, which sometimes get the better and sometimes are worsted, for besides the fierceness and great strength of the bears to defend themselves with their teeth, they hug the dogs with their paws so tightly, that, unless the masters came to assist them, they would be strangled by such soft embraces. Into the same place they brought a pony with an ape fastened on its back, and to see the animal kicking amongst the dogs, with the screams of the ape, beholding the curs hanging from the ears and neck of the pony, is very laughable.[191]

[Footnote 191: The original manuscript of this narrative, in Spanish, is preserved in the British Museum. I quote the translation by Frederick Madden, in _Archæologia_, XIII, 354-55.]

Orazio Busino, the chaplain of the Venetian Embassy in London, writes in his _Anglipotrida_ (1618):

The dogs are detached from the bear by inserting between the teeth ... certain iron spattles with a wooden handle; whilst they take them off the bull (keeping at a greater distance) with certain flat iron hooks which they apply to the thighs or even to the neck of the dog, whose tail is simultaneously dexterously seized by another of these rufflers. The bull can hardly get at anybody, as he wears a collar round his neck with only fifteen feet of rope, which is fastened to a stake deeply planted in the middle of the theatre. Other rufflers are at hand with long poles to put under the dog so as to break his fall after he has been tossed by the bull; the tips of these [poles] are covered with thick leather to prevent them from disembowelling the dogs. The most spirited stroke is considered to be that of the dog who seizes the bull's lip, clinging to it and pinning the animal for some time; the second best hit is to seize the eyebrows; the third, but far inferior, consists in seizing the bull's ear.[192]

[Footnote 192: _The Calendar of State Papers_, Venetian, XV, 258.]

Paul Hentzner, the German traveler who visited London in 1598, wrote thus of the Bear Garden:

There is still another place, built in the form of a theatre, which serves for the baiting of bulls and bears; they are fastened behind, and then worried by great English bull-dogs, but not without great risk to the dogs, from the horns of the one, and the teeth of the other; and it sometimes happens they are killed upon the spot; fresh ones are immediately supplied in the places of those that are wounded or tired. To this entertainment there often follows that of whipping a blinded bear, which is performed by five or six men standing circularly with whips, which they exercise upon him without any mercy, as he cannot escape from them because of his chain; he defends himself with all his force and skill, throwing down all who come within his reach, and are not active enough to get out of it, and tearing the whips out of their hands and breaking them.

The following passage is taken from the diary of the Duke of Wirtemberg (who visited London in 1592), "noted down daily in the most concise manner possible, at his Highness's gracious command, by his private secretary":[193]

On the 1st of September his Highness was shown in London the English dogs, of which there were about 120, all kept in the same enclosure, but each in separate kennel. In order to gratify his Highness, and at his desire, two bears and a bull were baited; at such times you can perceive the breed and mettle of the dogs, for although they receive serious injuries from the bears, and are caught by the horns of the bull and tossed into the air so as frequently to fall down again upon the horns, they do not give in, [but fasten on the bull so firmly] that one is obliged to pull them back by the tails and force open their jaws. Four dogs at once were set on the bull; they however could not gain any advantage over him, for he so artfully contrived to ward off their attacks that they could not well get at him; on the contrary, the bull served them very scurvily by striking and beating at them.

[Footnote 193: The secretary was named Jacob Rathgeb, and the diary was published at Tübingen in 1602 with a long title beginning: _A True and Faithful Narrative of the Bathing Excursion which His Serene Highness_, etc. A translation will be found in Rye, _England as Seen by Foreigners_, pp. 3-53.]

The following is a letter from one William Faunte to Edward Alleyn, then proprietor of the Bear Garden, regarding the sale of some game bulls:

I understood by a man which came with two bears from the garden, that you have a desire to buy one of my bulls. I have three western bulls at this time, but I have had very ill luck with them, for one of them hath lost his horn to the quick, that I think he will never be able to fight again; that is my old Star of the West: he was a very easy bull. And my bull Bevis, he hath lost one of his eyes, but I think if you had him he would do you more hurt than good, for I protest I think he would either throw up your dogs into the lofts, or else ding out their brains against the grates.[194]

[Footnote 194: Collier, _The Alleyn Papers_, p. 31.]

Finally, among the Alleyn papers of Dulwich College is an interesting bill, or advertisement, of an afternoon's performance at the Bear Garden:

To-morrow being Thursday shall be seen at the Bear Garden on the Bankside a great match played by the gamesters of Essex, who hath challenged all comers whatsoever to play five dogs at the single bear for five pounds, and also to weary a bull dead at the stake; and for your better content [you] shall have pleasant sport with the horse and ape and whipping of the blind bear. _Vivat Rex!_

In 1613 the Bear Garden was torn down, and a new and handsomer structure erected in its place. For the history of this building the reader is referred to the chapter on "The Hope."