The First London Theatre 3 
as playhouses, or their companies were drive: yt,,of business 
or into the new theatres in the suburbs. By 
Companies in all the public theatres shifted and changed like 
satellites in erratic orbits about central suns. None were stable. 
Uncertain financial conditions, internal differences, or other 
theatrical troubles were the common causes. Almost every 
change of company can be traced to financial difficulties. More 
than an equal share of these troubles huddled on the backs of the 
Burbages in connection with the Theatre and its companies from 
the first. Briefly may we survey the troubled years that led up 
to the organization of the Burbage-Shakespeare company and the 
building of the Globe. 
James Burbage was reared to the trade of carpenter and joiner. 
One of his enemies, Robert Myles, goldsmith, said of him in 1592 
that “he never knew him but a po™ man & but of fmall Credit, 
being by occupacion A Joyner, and reaping but A fmall lyving by 
the fame, gave it over, and became A Commen Player in playes.” 
Burbage was one of the principal actors in Lord Leicester’s com- 
pany, and in 1574 he and his associates obtained the first royal 
patent ever granted in England to a company of players. This 
was primarily intended as a means of protection against the con- 
stant opposition of the City authorities. Still the opposition 
continued, and made acting at the inns difficult. Burbage talked 
the situation over with his brother-in-law and others. He 
showed them that the erection of a building devoted solely to 
play-acting would be profitable. There was the constant demand 
of the Court for plays, and the growing demand of the public. 
But the opposition of the City made it necessary to find a loca- 
tion outside its jurisdiction. He cast about, and found such a 
location in the precincts of the old dissolved Hallywell priory in 
Shoreditch, north of the City. Here he found he could get 
cheaply, for only 14/. rent per annum, a plot of ground, with some 
old buildings on it. 
Old men and women agreed in the statement of Thomas Brom- 
field in 1600, concerning the nature of the buildings in 1576, that 
“they weare houfes of Offyce as A Slaughter houfe and Brewe 
houfe and low paulterye buyldinges”. Richard Hudson, a car- 
3 
