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
Next the widow, attended by Robert Myles and others, visited the home
of the Burbages "to require them to perform the said award" of the
court. They were met by James Burbage's wife, who "charged them to go
out of her grounds, or else she would make her son break their knaves'
heads." Aroused by this noise, "James Burbage, her husband, looking
out a window upon them, called the complainant [Widow Brayne]
murdering whore, and ... the others villaines, rascals, and knaves."
And when Mistress Brayne spoke of the order of the court, "he cryed
unto her, 'Go, go. A cart, a cart for you! I will obey no such order,
nor I care not for any such orders, and therefore it were best for you
and your companions to be packing betimes, for if my son [Cuthbert]
come he will thump you hence!'" Just then Cuthbert did "come home, and
in very hot sort bid them get thence, or else he would set them
forwards, saying 'I care for no such order. The Chancery shall not
give away what I have paid for.'" And so, after "great and horrible
oathes" by James Burbage and his son, the widow and her attendants
"went their ways."[79]
[Footnote 79: _Ibid._, p. 121.]
Receiving thus no satisfaction from these visits to the home of James
Burbage, the widow and Robert Myles came several times to the Theatre,
bearing the order of the court in their hands; but each time they were
railed upon and driven out. Finally, the widow, with her ever-faithful
adjutant Robert Myles, his son Ralph, and his business partner,
Nicholas Bishop, went "to the Theatre upon a play-day to stand at the
door that goeth up to the galleries of the said Theatre to take and
receive for the use of the said Margaret half of the money that should
be given to come up into the said gallery." In the Theatre they were
met by Richard Burbage, then about nineteen years old, and his mother,
who "fell upon the said Robert Myles and beat him with a broom staff,
calling him murdering knave." When Myles's partner, Bishop, ventured
to protest at this contemptuous treatment of the order of the court,
"the said Richard Burbage," so Bishop deposed, "scornfully and
disdainfully playing with this deponent's nose, said that if he dealt
in the matter, he would beat him also, and did challenge the field of
him at that time." One of the actors then coming in, John
Alleyn--brother of the immortal Edward Alleyn--"found the foresaid
Richard Burbage, the youngest son of the said James Burbage, there
with a broom staff in his hand; of whom when this deponent Alleyn
asked what stir was there, he answered in laughing phrase how they
came for a moiety, 'But,' quod he (holding up the said broom staff)
'I have, I think, delivered him a moiety with this, and sent them
packing.'" Alleyn thereupon warned the Burbages that Myles could bring
an action of assault and battery against them. "'Tush,' quod the
father, 'no, I warrant you; but where my son hath now beat him hence,
my sons, if they will be ruled by me, shall at their next coming
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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