Shakespearean Playhouses: A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the RestorationAdams, Joseph Quincy
History
Shakespearean Playhouses: A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration
Adams, Joseph Quincy
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stage history -- To 1625; Theaters -- England -- London -- History
The city authorities, always hostile to the actors and jealous of any
new theatres, made so vigorous a complaint to the Privy Council that
the Lords of the Council "thought fit to send for Rosseter." He came,
bringing his royal license. This document was carefully "perused by
the Lord Chief Justice of England," who succeeded in discovering in
the wording of one of its clauses a trivial flaw that would enable the
Privy Council, on a technicality, to prohibit the building: "The Lord
Chief Justice did deliver to their Lordships that the license granted
to the said Rosseter did extend to the building of a playhouse without
the liberties of London, and not within the city."[573] Now, in 1608
the liberty of Blackfriars had by a special royal grant been placed
within the jurisdiction of the city. Rosseter's license unluckily had
described the Lady Saunders's house as being "in the suburbs," though,
of course, the description was otherwise specific enough: "all which
premises are situate and being within the precinct of the Blackfriars,
near Puddlewharf, in the suburbs of London, called by the name of the
Lady Saunders's House, or otherwise Porter's Hall."
[Footnote 573: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 373.]
Since "the inconveniences urged by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen were
many," the Lords of the Privy Council decided to take advantage of the
flaw discovered by the Lord Chief Justice, and prohibit the erection
of the playhouse. Their order, issued September 26, 1615, reads as
follows:
It was this day ordered by their Lordships that there shall
be no playhouse erected in that place, and that the Lord
Mayor of London shall straightly prohibit the said Rosseter
and the rest of the patentees, and their workmen to proceed
in the making and converting the said building into a
playhouse. And if any of the patentees or their workmen
shall proceed in their intended building contrary to this
their Lordships' inhibition, that then the Lord Mayor shall
commit him or them so offending unto prison and certify
their Lordships of their contempt in that behalf.[574]
[Footnote 574: _Ibid._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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