Early London Theatres

' e last date stamped below mp 2 SOUTHERN bran; UNiVilTY OF GAIUOHK.. tX>£ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/earlylondontheatOOordi LONDON THEATRES. 412 'tirhe Cambcn îbntrp. EDITED BY G. LAURENCE GOMME, F.S.A. AND T. FAIRMAN ORDISH, F.S.A. : THE CAMDEN LIBRARY. EARLY LONDON THEATRES [Jn tbe Jîelbs.] BY T. FAIRMAN ORDISH, F.S.A. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND I\!APS. Have we not houses of purpose built with great charges for the maintenance of them, and that without the hberties, as who shall say, there, let them say what they will, we will play.' John Stockwood's Sermon, 1578. LONDON ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1894. a 'i f-: 7 13G3 ô the Jttemory of JAMES ORCHARD HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS AND WILLIAM RENDLE. PREFACE, late O. Halliwetl-Philllpps, whose THE J. life-long labours in Shakespearean and Elizabethan literature made his opinion of the- greatest importance, was struck with my attempt, in the pages of the Antiquary^ to cast the story of the Shakespeare stage into a narrative of the playhouses ; and he urged me to bring my work to completion in a book on the subject. The present volume represents the first half of the fulfilment of a promise which I made to him. It may suffice here to briefly indicate what appear to be points of novelty. The view put forward as to the origin of the playhouse—and the intimate relation between that origin and the fact that the earliest playhouses were erected ' in the Fields ' outside the town— is perhaps the most important of these. The account of the official war which was waged over the playhouses betweeii vm Preface. the Corporation and the Privy Council, although drawn from printed records, is new as a narrative, and fresh as a contribution to history. The chief point of novelty, with regard to the theatres on the south side of the river, is seen in the treatment of Newington Butts, in the chapter on ' The Surrey Side,' and in that on ' Newington Butts and the Rose.' The upshot is practically to rescue from oblivion another of the old playhouses. At one time the theatres with which this book is concerned had but a vague existence in history. The only playhouses that had a definite and tangible existence were the Globe and the Blackfriars, and these had attained their conspicuous place owing to the enthusiastic investigation inspired by the name of Shakespeare. This was the condition of the subject when the Variorum Shakespeare was published in 1 82 1, in the Prolegomena of which Malone's ' History of the Stage ' was republished. A few lines would suffice to cover all that there is told of the playhouses whose history has been compressed into this volume — The Theatre, the Curtain, Newington Butts, the Rose, the Hope, the Swan. The account of these theatres published by Collier about ten years later certainly added to the proportions of their history ; but all his work has become deservedly discredited owing to his in- veterate habit of loose and inaccurate statement. It is to the late Halliwell-Phillipps that we owe the — Preface. ix recovery of the history of The Theatre and of the Curtain ; and prompted and assisted by him, and generously encouraged and helped also by Dr. Furnivall, the late Mr. Rendle made some ex- tremely valuable additions to our knowledge of the Bankside and the playhouses there. With regard to the work of the late J. Payne Collier his ' History of Dramatic Poetry and Annals of the Stage,' in 3 vols. — it is unfortunately necessary to state in plain terms that it is quite unreliable (although it was reissued so recently as 1879), -^ have had occasion in the following pages to expose some characteristic ways in which he has misled students of this subject, but only when such ex- posure has been necessary to the point concerned. If the present volume and its successor on the urban theatres are justified at all, they should take the place, at least, of that portion of Collier's work which he called ' Annals of the Stage.' With regard to the vexed question of ' Paris Garden Theatre,' it will be seen that the evidence on which I chiefly rely is furnished in the maps which are included in this volume. But the way in which Collier is primarily responsible for the myth is exposed in the chapter on ' The Amphitheatres,' and the grounds for bestowing upon the Bear-Garden and Hope various references and facts which hitherto have been ascribed to the supposed amphitheatre in Paris Garden manor X Preface. are fully disclosed in the last two chapters of my book. The conclusion arrived at offers a contrast to the resuscitation of Newinfjton Butts in a previous chapter ; for an examination of the evidence leaves nothing tangible in support of the existence of either an amphitheatre or playhouse within the manor of Paris Garden before the date of the Svân. A considerable stir was made in the year 1888 by the publication of a pamphlet by Dr. Gaedertz, containing a drawing o{ the Swan Theatre, copied from the papers of one De Witt, who apparently visited this theatre in or about the year 1596. It was natural that some excitement should have been caused by so interesting a discovery ; but at this date it may be permissible to observe that the inevitable result of the discussion was to distort the significance of the find, and to magnify its real importance. There were those in England who, like the learned Doctor in Germany, took occasion to travel very widely over the subject generally, making the Swan, for the time being, the centre of interest, as aforetime the Globe had been the shining orb, around v/hich the other playhouses glimmered in fitful obscurity. In the present volume the discovery takes its place in the general history of the Swan, and the effect is to restore it to its proper proportions and perspective. It will be seen that it forms a picturesque addition to the r^^^'" Preface. xi subject, but that it really contributes very little to the stock of information already possessed. This volume deals only with the theatres which were in existence at the time of De Witt's visit, and this circumstance not only adds something of homogeneity to the book, but also offers the best means for estimating the true nature of the contribution made to the subject by this interesting notice of the Elizabethan stage. The Globe was of later date, and although it was one of the theatres ' in the fields,' I have reserved it for a subsequent volume, where it will be treated in connection with Blackfriars Theatre, with whose history it is inextricably bound up. My thanks are hereby tendered to Dr. F. J. Furnivall for permission to reproduce the Norden ' Map, given in his edition of Harrison's ' England (New Shakspere Society), which answered the purposes ot this book better than the version of the map in Norden's ' Middlesex,' which was at hand. It will be seen that other publications, brought out under the inspiring influence of Dr. FurnivalJ, have been laid under contribution (including Mr. Rendle's account of the Bankside theatres), and that many a useful note has been furnished from these sources. I have been very scrupulous in making acknowledgments and giving references throughout the ensuing pages ; there remains one instance of indebtedness which is too Xll Preface. general to be acknowledged in this way, and I gladly therefore introduce it here. I allude to an interesting article in the Builder by Mr. H. W. Brewer, which suggested the brief description of some features of monastic London on pp. 2-4. With regard to what is said on p. 200 concerning the lease of the Rose Theatre, I perceived too late that my puzzlement as to the dual lesseeship of Pope and Henslowe had induced an equal incerti- tude of expression. This 1 have endeavoured to correct in a note on p. 283. In conclusion, I have to point out that the subject of this volume is described in the title- page, and that I have not been tempted to wander in the fields of the literary drama ; that is to say, my subject is the stage and theatrical history, not the history of plays or dramatic literature, except when I have found that my subject seems to throw some fresh light on these. Within its limits, I hope this history will be found not un- worthy of the subject, or of the devotion of those to whose memory it is dedicated. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE REFORE THE PLAYHOUSES I CHAPTER II. THE THEATRE 33 CHAPTER III. THE CURTAIN n CHAPTER IV THE SURREY SIDE 1 08 CHAPTER V. THE AMPHITHEATRES 125 xiv Contents. CHAPTER VI. PAGE - NEWINGTON BUTTS AND THE ROSE - - 1 42 CHAPTER VII. THE BEAR-GARDEN AND HOPE THEATRE - - 20I CHAPTER VIII. PARIS GARDEN AND THE SWAN - - - - 245 INDEX - .... - 289 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PLAN OF LONDON, 1 572 - - - - To face p. I AMPHITHEATRE AT ST. JUST - - - - 18 PIRAN ROUND - - - - - - 20 STAGE FOR ACTING A MIRACLE-PLAY - - - 24 MAP OF HOLYWELL, SHOREDITCH, 1 745 - To face p. 40 TARLTON WITH PIPE AND TABOR - - - 69 WILL KEMPE DANCING THE MORRIS - - - 96 THE TABARD INN - - - - - II9 AMPHITHEATRES ON THE BANKSIDE - - - 1 26 NORDEN'S MAP OF LONDON, 1 593 - Toface p. \\1 THE BEAR-GARDEN AND HOPE THEATRE, 1616 - - 2l6 THE HOPE IN 1647 -..-.. 239 MAP OF THE SURREY SIDE, 1745-50 - - - 243 SITE OF THE SWAN THEATRE - - - .

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