Although Flecknoe referred to the Order of the Common Council as a "banishment," it did not actually drive the players from the city. They were able, through the intervention of the Privy Council, and on the old excuse of rehearsing plays for the Queen's entertainment, to occupy the inns for a large part of each year.[3] John Stockwood, in a sermon preached at Paul's Cross, August 24, 1578, bitterly complains of the "eight ordinary places" used regularly for plays, referring, it seems, to the five inns and the three playhouses--the Theatre, Curtain, and Blackfriars--recently opened to the public. [Footnote 3: See especially _The Acts of the Privy Council_ and _The Remembrancia_ of the City of London.] Richard Reulidge, in _A Monster Lately Found Out and Discovered_ (1628), writes that "soon after 1580" the authorities of London received permission from Queen Elizabeth and her Privy Council "to thrust the players out of the city, and to pull down all playhouses and dicing-houses within their liberties: which accordingly was effected; and the playhouses in Gracious Street [i.e., the Bell and the Cross Keys], Bishopsgate Street [i.e., the Bull], that nigh Paul's [i.e., Paul's singing school?], that on Ludgate Hill [i.e., the Bell Savage], and the Whitefriars[4] were quite put down and suppressed by the care of these religious senators." [Footnote 4: There is some error here. The city had no jurisdiction over Whitefriars, or Blackfriars either; but there was a playhouse in Blackfriars at the time, and it was suppressed in 1584, though not by the city authorities. Possibly Reulidge should have written "Whitechapel."] [Illustration: MAP OF LONDON SHOWING THE INN-PLAYHOUSES 1. The Bell Savage; 2. The Cross Keys; 3. The Bell; 4. The Bull; 5. The Boar's Head.] Yet, in spite of what Reulidge says, these five inns continued to be used by the players for many years.[5] No doubt they were often used surreptitiously. In _Martin's Month's Mind_ (1589), we read that a person "for a penie may have farre better [entertainment] by oddes at the Theatre and Curtaine, and _any blind playing house_ everie day."[6] But the more important troupes were commonly able, through the interference of the Privy Council, to get official permission to use the inns during a large part of each year. [Footnote 5: _The Remembrancia_ shows that the inn-playhouses remained for many years as sharp thorns in the side of the puritanical city fathers.] [Footnote 6: Grosart, _Nash_, I, 179.] There is not enough material about these early inn-playhouses to enable one to write their separate histories. Below, however, I have recorded in chronological order the more important references to them which have come under my observation.