These companies were: Lord Leicester's company, Sir Robert Lane's, Lord Clinton's, Lord Warwick's, the Lord Chamberlain's, the Earl of Sussex's, Lord Howard's, the Earl of Essex's, Lord Strange's, the Earl of Derby's, the Lord Admiral's, the Earl of Hertford's, and Lord Pembroke's. It is not supposed that all these companies existed at the same time; but the list shows how company after company was begun and maintained on the credit of some great lord. The theatres at the end of the sixteenth century were seven in number--the Globe, at Bankside; the Red Bull, in St. John Street; the Curtain, in Shoreditch; the Fortune, in Whitecross Street. These four were public theatres. The other three were called private houses--the Blackfriars, the Whitefriars, and the Cockpit or Phoenix Theatre. In the next chapter we shall assist at a matinee of one of Shakespeare's plays. But the people lost no opportunity of "making up," acting, and dancing. The pageant became more and more a play. There were pageants of more or less splendor--we all know the great pageants of Kenilworth--held in every great man's house, in every company's hall, and in private persons' houses, to mark every possible occasion. Thus, in the year 1562, on July 20, took place the marriage of one Coke, citizen (but of what company I know not)--was he a cousin of Edward Coke, afterwards Speaker?--with the daughter of Mr. Nicolls, master of London Bridge. My Lord Mayor and all the Aldermen, with many ladies and other worshipful men and women, were present at the wedding. Mr. Bacon, an eminent divine, preached the wedding sermon. After the discourse the company went home to the Bridge House to dinner, where was as good cheer as ever was known--Stow says so, and he knew very well--with all manner of music and dancing, and at night a masque till midnight. But this was only half the feast, for next day the wedding was again kept at the Bridge House with great cheer. After supper more mumming, after that more masques. One was in cloth of gold, the next consisted of friars, and the third of nuns. First the friars and the nuns danced separately, one company after the other, and then they danced together. Considering that it was only two years since the friars and the nuns had been finally suppressed, there must have been a certain piquancy in this dance. It is always, at such times, put on the stage. One of the first things, for instance, done in Madrid when Spain got her short-lived republic was that in every _café chantant_ they put a friar and a nun on the stage to dance and sing together.