To the Justices, Bailiffs, Constables, and Others to Whom it Shall Appertain: Whereas not long since, upon some considerations, we did restrain the Lord Strange his servants from playing at the Rose on the Bankside, and enjoyned them to play three days [a week] at Newington Butts; now forasmuch as we are satisfied that by reason of the tediousness of the way, and that of long time plays have not there been used on working days, and for that a number of poor watermen are thereby relieved, you shall permit and suffer them, or any other, there [at the Rose] to exercise themselves in such sort as they have done heretofore, and that the Rose may be at liberty without any restraint so long as it shall be free from infection, any commandment from us heretofore to the contrary notwithstanding.[206] [Footnote 204: Greg, _Henslowe's Diary_, II, 50, 73.] [Footnote 205: Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, p. 42.] [Footnote 206: _Ibid._, pp. 43-44.] From this warrant we learn that so early as 1592 the Newington house was almost deserted, and that "of long time" plays had been given there only occasionally. Two years later, on June 3, 1594, Henslowe sent the Admiral's and the Chamberlain's Men to play temporarily at the half-deserted old playhouse, probably in order to give opportunity for needed repairs at the Rose.[207] The section of his _Diary_, under the heading, "In the name of god Amen begininge at newington my Lord Admeralle men & my Lord Chamberlen men As followethe 1594," constitutes the fullest and clearest--and, one may add, the most illustrious--chapter in the history of this obscure building; for although it extends over only ten days, it tells us that Edward Alleyn, Richard Burbage, and William Shakespeare then trod the Newington stage, and it records the performance there of such plays as _The Jew of Malta_, _Andronicus_, _The Taming of a Shrew_, and _Hamlet_. [Footnote 207: There is no evidence that Henslowe owned the house at Newington; he might very well have rented it for this particular occasion.] We next hear of the building near the end of the century: in 1599, says Mr. Wallace, it was "only a memory, as shown by a contemporary record to be published later."[208] [Footnote 208: Wallace, _The First London Theatre_, p. 2.] Two other references close the history. In _A Woman is a Weathercock_, III, iii, printed in 1612, but written earlier, one of the actors exclaims of an insufferable pun: "O Newington Conceit!" The fact that this sneer is the only reference to the Newington Playhouse found in contemporary literature is a commentary on the low esteem in which the building was held by the Elizabethans, and its relative unimportance for the history of the drama.