Shakespearean Playhouses Part 32

There can be no doubt that an order so peremptory, carrying the authority both of the Privy Council and of the King, and requiring an immediate report, was performed "with all speed." After this we hear nothing more of the playhouse in Puddlewharf.[576]

[Footnote 576: I can find no further reference to the Puddlewharf Theatre either in the _Records_ of the Privy Council or in the _Remembrancia_ of the City. Collier, however, in his _History of English Dramatic Poetry_ (1879), I, 384, says: "The city authorities proceeded immediately to the work, and before three days had elapsed, the Privy Council was duly and formally made acquainted with the fact that Rosseter's theatre had been 'made unfit for any such use' as that for which it had been constructed." Collier fails to cite his authority for the statement; the pa.s.sage he quotes may be found in the order of the Privy Council printed above.]

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PHOENIX, OR c.o.c.kPIT IN DRURY LANE

The private playhouse opened in Drury Lane[577] in 1617 seems to have been officially named "The Phoenix"; but to the players and the public alike it was more commonly known as "The c.o.c.kpit." This implies some earlier connection of the site or of the building with c.o.c.k-fighting, from time out of mind a favorite sport in England.

Stowe writes in his _Survey_: "c.o.c.ks of the game are yet cherished by diverse men for their pleasures, much money being laid on their heads, when they fight in pits, whereof some be costly made for that purpose." These pits, it seems, were circular in shape, and if large enough might well be used for dramatic purposes. Shakespeare, in _Henry V_ (1599), likens his playhouse to a c.o.c.kpit:

Can this c.o.c.kpit hold The vasty fields of France? or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt?

[Footnote 577: Its exact position in Drury Lane is indicated by an order of the Privy Council, June 8, 1623, concerning the paving of a street at the rear of the theatre: "Whereas the highway leading along the backside of the c.o.c.kpit Playhouse near Lincolns Inn Fields, and the street called Queens Street adjoining to the same, are become very foul," etc. (See The Malone Society _Collections_, I, 383. Queens Street may be readily found in Faithorne's _Map of London_.) Malone (_Variorum_, III, 53) states that "it was situated opposite the Castle Tavern." The site is said to be marked by Pit Court.]

It is possible, then, that the building was an old c.o.c.kpit made into a playhouse. Howes,[578] in enumerating the London theatres, says: "Five inns or common hostelries turned into playhouses, one c.o.c.kpit, St.

Paul's singing-school," etc. And Thomas Randolph, in verses prefixed to James Shirley's _Grateful Servant_ (printed in 1630 as it was acted "in the private house in Drury Lane"), suggests the same metamorphosis:

When thy intelligence on the c.o.c.kpit stage Gives it a soul from her immortal rage, I hear the Muse's birds with full delight Sing where the birds of Mars were wont to fight.

[Footnote 578: Stow's _Annals_ (1631), p. 1004.]

But in this fantastic conceit Randolph may have been thinking simply of the name of the theatre; possibly he knew nothing of its early history. On the whole it seems more likely that the playhouse was newly erected in 1617 upon the site of an old c.o.c.kpit. The name "Phoenix" suggests that possibly the old c.o.c.kpit had been destroyed by fire, and that from its ashes had arisen a new building.[579]

Howes describes the Phoenix as being in 1617 "a new playhouse,"[580]

and Camden, who is usually accurate in such matters, refers to it in the same year as "nuper er.e.c.t.u.m."[581]

[Footnote 579: Some scholars have supposed that the playhouse, when attacked by the apprentices in 1617, was burned, and that the name "Phoenix" was given to the building after its reconstruction. But the building was not burned; it was merely wrecked on the inside by apprentices.]

[Footnote 580: Continuation of Stow's _Annals_ (1631), p. 1026.]

[Footnote 581: William Camden, _Annals_, under the date of March 4, 1617. Yet Sir Sidney Lee (_A Life of William Shakespeare_, p. 60) says, "built about 1610."]

Of its size and shape all our information comes from James Wright, who in his _Historia Histrionica_[582] tells us that the c.o.c.kpit differed in no essential feature from Blackfriars and Salisbury Court, "for they were all three built almost exactly alike for form and bigness."

Since we know that Blackfriars and Salisbury Court were small rectangular theatres, the former constructed in a hall forty-six feet broad and sixty-six feet long, the latter erected on a plot of ground forty-two feet broad and one hundred and forty feet long, we are not left entirely ignorant of the shape and the approximate size of the c.o.c.kpit.[583] And from Middleton's _Inner Temple Masque_ (1618) we learn that it was constructed of brick. Its sign, presumably, was that of a phoenix rising out of flames.

[Footnote 582: Hazlitt's Dodsley, XV, 408.]

[Footnote 583: Fleay and Lawrence are wrong in supposing that the c.o.c.kpit was circular.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SITE OF THE c.o.c.kPIT IN DRURY LANE

The site is marked by c.o.c.kpit Court. (From Rocque's _Map of London_, 1746.)]

The playhouse was erected and managed by Christopher Beeston,[584] one of the most important actors and theatrical managers of the Elizabethan period. We first hear of him as a member of Shakespeare's troupe. In 1602 he joined Worcester's Company. In 1612 he became the manager of Queen Anne's Company at the Red Bull. He is described at that time as "a thriving man, and one that was of ability and means."[585] He continued as manager of the Queen Anne's Men at the Red Bull until 1617, when he transferred them to his new playhouse in Drury Lane.

[Footnote 584: _Alias_ Christopher Hutchinson. Several actors of the day employed _aliases_: Nicholas Wilkinson, _alias_ Tooley; Theophilus Bourne, _alias_ Bird; James Dunstan, _alias_ Tunstall, etc. Whether Beeston admitted other persons to a share in the building I cannot learn. In a pa.s.sage quoted by Malone (_Variorum_, III, 121) from the Herbert Ma.n.u.script, dated February 20, 1635, there is a reference to "housekeepers," indicating that Beeston had then admitted "sharers" in the proprietorship of the building. And in an order of the Privy Council, May 12, 1637 (The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 392), we read: "Command the keepers of the playhouse called the c.o.c.kpit in Drury Lane, who either live in it or have relation to it, not to permit plays to be acted there till further order."]

[Footnote 585: Wallace, _Three London Theatres_, p. 35.]

The playhouse seems to have been ready to receive the players about the end of February, 1617. We know that they were still performing at the Red Bull as late as February 23;[586] but by March 4 they had certainly moved to the c.o.c.kpit.

[Footnote 586: Wallace, _ibid._, pp. 32, 46. John Smith was delivering silk and other clothes to the Queen Anne's Men at the Red Bull from 1612 until February 23, 1617.]

On the latter date, during the performance of a play, the c.o.c.kpit was entered by a mob of disorderly persons, who proceeded to demolish the interior. The occasion for the wrecking of the new playhouse was the Shrove Tuesday saturnalia of the London apprentices, who from time immemorial had employed this holiday to pull down houses of ill-fame in the suburbs. That the c.o.c.kpit was situated in the neighborhood of such houses cannot be doubted. We may suppose that the mob, fresh from sacking buildings, had crowded into the playhouse in the afternoon, and before the play was over had wrecked that building too.

The event created a great stir at the time. William Camden, in his _Annals_, wrote under the date of March 4, 1617:

Theatrum ludiorum, nuper er.e.c.t.u.m in Drury Lane, a furente mult.i.tudine diruitur, et apparatus dilaceratur.

Howes, in his continuation of Stow's _Annals_, writes:

Shrove-Tuesday, the fourth of March, many disordered persons of sundry kinds, amongst whom were very many young boys and lads, that a.s.sembled themselves in Lincolnes Inn Field, Finsbury Field, in Ratcliffe, and Stepney Field, where in riotous manner they did beat down the walls and windows of many victualing houses and of all other houses which they suspected to be bawdy houses. And that afternoon they spoiled a new playhouse, and did likewise more hurt in diverse other places.[587]

[Footnote 587: _Annals_ (1631), p. 1026.]

That several persons were killed, and many injured, is disclosed by a letter from the Privy Council to the Lord Mayor, dated March 5, 1617:

It is not unknown unto you what tumultuous outrages were yesterday committed near unto the city of London in diverse places by a rowt of lewd and loose persons, apprentices and others, especially in Lincolns Inn Fields and Drury Lane, where in attempting to pull down a playhouse belonging to the Queen's Majesty's Servants, there were diverse persons slain, and others hurt and wounded, the mult.i.tude there a.s.sembled being to the number of many thousands, as we are credibly informed.[588]

[Footnote 588: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 374. Collier, in _The History of English Dramatic Poetry_ (1879), I, 386, prints a long ballad on the event; but he does not give its source, and its genuineness has been questioned. The following year threats to pull down the Fortune, the Red Bull, and the c.o.c.kpit led to the setting of special watches. See The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 377.]

The Queen's Men returned to the Red Bull and acted there until their ruined playhouse could be repaired. Three months later, on June 3, they again occupied the c.o.c.kpit,[589] and continued there until the death of Queen Anne on March 2, 1619.[590]

[Footnote 589: Greenstreet, Doc.u.ments, _The New Shakspere Society's Transactions_ (1880-86), p. 504.]

[Footnote 590: Mr. Wallace (_Three London Theatres_, p. 29) says that the doc.u.ments he prints make it "as certain as circ.u.mstances unsupported by contemporary declaration can make it, that Queen Anne's company occupied the Red Bull continuously from the time of its erection ... till their dissolution, 1619." His doc.u.ments make it certain only that Queen Anne's Men occupied the Red Bull until February 23, 1617. Other doc.u.ments prove that they occupied the c.o.c.kpit from 1617 until 1619. (Note the letter of the Privy Council quoted above.) The doc.u.ments printed by Greenstreet show that Queen Anne's Men moved to the c.o.c.kpit on June 3, 1617, and continued there.]

This event led to the dissolution of the company. For a year or more its members had been "falling at variance and strife amongst themselves," and when the death of the Queen deprived them of a "service," they "separated and divided themselves into other companies."[591] As a result of the quarrels certain members of the company made charges against their former manager, Beeston: "The said Beeston having from the beginning a greater care for his own private gain, and not respecting the good of these defendants and the rest of his fellows and companions, hath in the place and trust aforesaid much enriched himself, and hath of late given over his coat and condition,[592] and separated and divided himself from these defendants, carrying away not only all the furniture and apparel,"

etc.[593] The charges against Beeston's honesty may be dismissed; but it seems clear that he had withdrawn from his former companions, and was preparing to entertain a new troupe of actors at his playhouse.

And Beeston himself tells us, on November 23, 1619, that "after Her Majesty's decease, he entered into the service of the most n.o.ble Prince Charles."[594] Thus Prince Charles's Men, after their unfortunate experiences at the Hope and at Rosseter's Blackfriars, came to Beeston's playhouse, where they remained until 1622. In the spring of that year, however, they moved to the Curtain, and the Princess Elizabeth's Men occupied the c.o.c.kpit.[595] Under their tenancy, the playhouse seems to have attained an enviable reputation.

Heminges and Condell, in the epistle to the readers, prefixed to the Folio of Shakespeare (1623), bear testimony to this in the following terms: "And though you be a Magistrate of Wit, and sit on the stage at Blackfriars, or the c.o.c.kpit, to arraign plays daily." A further indication of their prosperity is to be found in the records of St.

Giles's Church; for when in 1623 the parish undertook the erection of a new church building, "the players of the c.o.c.kpit," we are informed, contributed the large sum of 20, and the proprietors, represented by Christopher Beeston, gave 19 1_s._ 5_d._[596]

[Footnote 591: Wallace, _Three London Theatres_, p. 33.]

[Footnote 592: He had joined Prince Charles's Men.]

[Footnote 593: Wallace, _Three London Theatres_, p. 38.]

[Footnote 594: _Ibid._, p. 40. Fleay, Murray, and others have contended that the Princess Elizabeth's Men came to the c.o.c.kpit in 1619, and have denied the accuracy of the t.i.tle-page of _The Witch of Edmonton_ (1658), which declares that play to have been "acted by the Prince's Servants at the c.o.c.kpit often." (See Fleay, _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, p. 299.)]

[Footnote 595: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 59.]

[Footnote 596: John Parton, _Some Account of the Hospital and Parish of St. Giles in the Fields_, p. 235. From a parish entry in 1660 we learn that the players had to contribute 2_d._ to the parish poor for each day that there was acting at the c.o.c.kpit. (See _ibid._, p. 236.)]

The Princess Elizabeth's Men continued to act at the c.o.c.kpit until May, 1625, when all theatres were closed on account of the plague.