a new church building, "the players of the Cockpit," we are informed, contributed the large sum of L20, and the proprietors, represented by Christopher Beeston, gave L19 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 Cockpit in 1619, and have denied the accuracy of the title-page of _The Witch of Edmonton_ (1658), which declares that play to have been "acted by the Prince's Servants at the Cockpit 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 Cockpit. (See _ibid._, p. 236.)] The Princess Elizabeth's Men continued to act at the Cockpit until May, 1625, when all theatres were closed on account of the plague. Beeston made this the occasion to organize a new company called "Queen Henrietta's Men"; and when the theatres were allowed to reopen, about December, 1625,[597] this new company was in possession of the Cockpit. But the reputation of the playhouse seems not to have been enhanced by the performances of this troupe. In 1629, Lenton, in _The Young Gallant's Whirligig_, writes sneeringly: The Cockpit heretofore would serve his wit, But now upon the Friars' Stage he'll sit. [Footnote 597: In the _Middlesex County Records_, III, 6, we find that on December 6, 1625, because "the drawing of people together to places was a great means of spreading and continuing the infection ... this Court doth prohibit the players of the house at the Cockpit, being next to His Majesty's Court at Whitehall, commanding them to surcease all such their proceedings until His Majesty's pleasure be further signified." Apparently the playhouses in general had been allowed to resume performances; and since by December 24 there had been no deaths from the plague for a week, the special inhibition of the Cockpit Playhouse was soon lifted.] And in the following year, 1630, Thomas Carew in verses prefixed to Davenport's _Just Italian_, attacks the Red Bull and the Cockpit as "adulterate" stages where "noise prevails," and "not a tongue of th' untun'd kennel can a line repeat of serious sense." Queen Henrietta's Men probably continued to occupy the building until May 12, 1636, when the theatres were again closed on account of a serious outbreak of the plague. The plague continued for nearly a year and a half, and during this time the company was dissolved.[598]