Alleyn, though deferring to sign a new lease, allowed Burbage to continue in possession of the property at "the old rent of L14." Yet the Theatre seems not to have been used for plays after the original lease expired.[84] The Lord Chamberlain's Company, which had been occupying the Theatre, and of which Richard Burbage was the chief actor, had moved to the Curtain; and the author of _Skialetheia_, printed in 1598, refers to the old playhouse as empty: "But see, yonder, one, like the unfrequented Theatre, walks in dark silence and vast solitude."[85] [Footnote 84: The lease expired on April 13, 1597; on July 28 the Privy Council closed all playhouses until November. The references to the Theatre in _The Remembrancia_ (see The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 78) do not necessarily imply that the building was then actually used by the players.] [Footnote 85: The same fact is revealed in the author's remark, "If my dispose persuade me to a play, I'le to the Rose or Curtain," for at this time only the Chamberlain's Men and the Admiral's Men were allowed to play.] To Cuthbert Burbage such a state of affairs was intolerable, and on September 29, 1598, he made a new appeal to Alleyn. Alleyn proffered a lease already drawn up, but Cuthbert would not "accept thereof" because of the "very unreasonable covenants therein contained."[86] [Footnote 86: Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 216, 249.] Shortly after this fruitless interview, or late in 1598, Gyles Alleyn resolved to take advantage of the fact that Cuthbert Burbage had not removed the Theatre before the expiration of the first twenty-one years. He contended that since Cuthbert had "suffered the same there to continue till the expiration of the said term ... the right and interest of the said Theatre was both in law and conscience absolutely vested" now in himself; accordingly he planned "to pull down the same, and to convert the wood and timber thereof to some better use for the benefit" of himself.[87] [Footnote 87: _Ibid._, pp. 277, 288.] But, unfortunately for Alleyn, Cuthbert Burbage "got intelligence" of this purpose, and at once set himself to the task of saving his property. He and his brother Richard, the great actor, took into their confidence the chief members of the Lord Chamberlain's Company, then performing at the Curtain Playhouse, namely William Shakespeare, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, and William Kempe. These men agreed to form with the Burbages a syndicate to finance the erection of a new playhouse. The two Burbages agreed to bear one-half the expense, including the timber and other materials of the old Theatre, and the five actors promised to supply the other half. Together they leased a suitable plot of land on the Bankside near Henslowe's Rose, the lease dating from December 25, 1598. These details having been arranged, it remained only for the Burbages to save their building from the covetousness of Alleyn.