act, were by some of the soldiery despoiled of all their bravery; but the soldiery carried themselves very civilly towards the audience."[511] In the _Weekly Intelligencer_, September 11-18, 1655, we find recorded still another sad experience for the actors: "Friday, September 11, 1655.--This day proved tragicall to the players at the Red Bull; their acting being against the Act of Parliament, the soldiers secured the persons of some of them who were upon the stage, and in the tiring-house they seized also upon their clothes in which they acted, a great part whereof was very rich."[512] [Footnote 509: Hazlitt's Dodsley, XV, 409.] [Footnote 510: _Ibid._, 409-10.] [Footnote 511: Cited by C.H. Firth, in _Notes and Queries_, August 18, 1888, series VII, vol. VI, p. 122.] [Footnote 512: _Ibid._] On this occasion, however, the soldiers, instead of carrying themselves "very civilly" towards the audience, undertook to exact from each of the spectators the fine of five shillings. The ordinance of Parliament, passed February 9, 1648, read: "And it is hereby further ordered and ordained, that every person or persons which shall be present and a spectator at such stage-play or interlude, hereby prohibited, shall for every time he shall be present, forfeit and pay the sum of five shillings to the use of the poor of the parish."[513] But the spectators did not submit to this fine without a struggle. Jeremiah Banks wrote to Williamson on September 16, 1655: "At the playhouse this week many were put to rout by the soldiers and had broken crowns; the corporal would have been entrapped had he not been vigilant."[514] And in the _Weekly Intelligencer_, September 11-18, we read: "It never fared worse with the spectators than at this present, for those who had monies paid their five shillings apiece; those who had none, to satisfy their forfeits, did leave their cloaks behind them. The Tragedy of the spectators was the Comedy of the soldiers. There was abundance of the female sex, who, not able to pay five shillings, did leave some gage or other behind them, insomuch that although the next day after the Fair was expected to be a new fair of hoods, of aprons, and of scarfs; all which, their poverty being made known, and after some check for their trespass, were civilly again restored to the owners."[515] [Footnote 513: Hazlitt, _The English Drama and Stage_, p. 69.] [Footnote 514: _The Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1655_, p. 336.] [Footnote 515: For a further account of this episode see _Mercurius Fumigosus_, No. 69.]