The occupation of the Blackfriars by the King's men was not wholly peaceful. The beginning of their tenure almost exactly coincided with the grant of the new charter by which the jurisdiction of the City was extended to the precinct.[1] It was not, however, until 1619 that an attempt was made to invoke this jurisdiction against them. In that year the officials of the precinct and the church of St. Anne's, backed up by a few of the inhabitants, sent a petition to the Corporation, in which they recited the inconveniences due to a play-*house in their midst, recalled the action taken by the Privy Council in 1596, as well as the Star Chamber order of 1600 limiting the London play-houses to two, and begged that conformity to the wishes of the Council might be enforced. The Corporation made an order for the suppression of the Blackfriars on 21 January 1619.[2] It clearly remained inoperative, but explains why the King's men thought it desirable to obtain a fresh patent, dated on 27 March 1619, in which their right to play at 'their private house scituate in the precinctes of the Blackfriers', as well as at the Globe, was explicitly stated.[3] They had to face another attack in 1631. Their opponents on this occasion approached Laud, then Bishop of London.[4] After some delay Laud seems to have brought the matter before the Privy Council. The idea was
- [Footnote: 105, conjectures that Alleyn bought Shakespeare's interest in April 1612,
and it appears from G. F. Warner, Dulwich MSS. 115, 172, 174, that he forged entries in documents relating to other property of Alleyn's in Blackfriars, as a support to this conjecture.]
- ↑ Cf. p. 480.
- ↑ Text in Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 311, and Harrison, iv. 323, from City Repertory, xxxiv, f. 38^v. The two petitions of the officials and inhabitants are in M. S. C. i. 90, from Remembrancia, v. 28, 29. They are undated, but can be identified from a recital in the order. The officials allege 'that whereas in November 1596 divers both honorable persons and others then inhabiting the said precinct made knowne to the Lordes and others of the privie Counsell, what inconveniencies were likelie to fall vpon them, by a common Playhouse which was then preparinge to bee erected there, wherevpon their Honours then forbadd the vse of the said howse for playes, as by the peticion and indorsemente in aunswere thereof may appeare. . . . Nevertheles . . . the owner of the said playhouse doth vnder the name of a private howse (respectinge indeed private comoditie only) convert the said howse to a publique playhouse.' They dwell on the inconvenience caused by the congested streets and the difficulty of getting to church 'the ordinary passage for a great part of the precinct aforesaid being close by the play house dore'.
- ↑ Text in M. S. C. i. 280.
- ↑ Text in Collier, i. 455, from S. P. D. Car. I, ccv. 32, where it is accompanied by copies of the Privy Council order and letter of 22 June 1600 (App. D, No. cxxiv) and the City order of 21 Jan. 1619. Probably the copy of the petition of Blackfriars inhabitants in 1596 (cf. p. 508), now in S. P. D. Eliz. cclx. 116, originally belonged to this set of documents.
