Queen's men by a civic order of 28 November 1583 for their first winter season. Tarlton's Jests also mention Tarlton and 'his fellowes', probably the Queen's men, as performing at the Bell 'by' the Cross Keys which was also in Gracious Street, and this must have been before Tarlton's death in 1588.[1] Both houses may be included in Rawlidge's reference to play-houses in Gracious street and elsewhere 'put down' by the City in Elizabeth's time. I suppose that the site is that of Bell Yard at No. 12 on the west of Gracechurch Street.[2]
iv. THE BEL SAVAGE INN
The Bel Savage is named as an early London play-house in the 1596 edition of Lambarde's Perambulation of Kent. This inn, of which the name is still preserved on Ludgate Hill, where it stood until 1873 (Harben, 63), must be distinguished from another in Gracechurch Street once kept by Tarlton, which in his time was known as the Saba.[3] The origin of the name is obscure; a deed of 1452 refers to an 'inn . . . called Savages Inn, otherwise called the Bell on the Hoop, in the parishe of St. Bride in Fleet Street' (L. T. R. ii. 71). Probably therefore the notion of the Belle Sauvage is a later perversion. Gascoigne, in the prologue to his Glass of Government (1575), repudiates the 'worthie jests' and 'vain delights' of 'Bellsavage fair'.[4] Gosson, in 1579, excepts from his general condemnation of plays 'the two prose books, played at the Belsavage, where you shall find never a word without wit, never a line without pith, never a letter placed in vain'.[5] A play-house 'on Ludgate Hill' is included by Rawlidge in his list of those 'put down' in Elizabeth's time. Probably the Queen's men were acting at the Bel Savage in 1588, for after the death of Tarlton in that year was published 'a sorowfull newe sonnette, intituled Tarltons Recantacion uppon this theame gyven him by a gentleman at the Belsavage without Ludgate (nowe or els never) beinge the laste theame he songe'.[6] Prynne's reference to Dr. Faustus (q.v.) at the Bel Savage suggests that at some time the Admiral's also played there. It was also occasionally used for the playing of 'prizes'; the earliest recorded date in
- ↑ Tarlton, 24.
- ↑ Harben, 65.
- ↑ Tarlton, 21. Apparently the Queen of Sheba, and not Pocahontas, was the original Belle Sauvage.
- ↑ App. C, No. xiv.
- ↑ App. C, No. xxii. The description reads like a compliment to Lyly, but does not justify the inference of Fleay, 39, that the Chapel boys played at the Bel Savage from 1559 to 1582.
- ↑ Arber, ii. 526.
