The First London Theatre 5 
‘period contemplated by the lease. For the performance of his 
part in the agreement, Allen gave Burbage a bond of 2001. 
Burbage lacked money. Some dozen men who knew him then 
declare that he was not well-to-do, and some of them testify that 
he was not worth 100/.—an apparent minimization. His brother- 
in-law, John Brayne (or Braynes), whose sister Burbage had 
married, was stirred with enthusiasm at the speculative prospects 
of the project. Brayne was a prosperous grocer in Bucklersbury, 
near Grocers Hall, well thought of in London, believed by his 
friends to be worth at least 500/., and commonly reputed to be 
worth 1000 marks. Whether urged by Burbage, on the repre- 
sentation that the building of the theatre would not cost over 
200/. and that the profits would be great, as witnesses for the 
Braine faction in 1590-92 testified, or whether, seeing large hopes 
in the project, Brayne urged his brother-in-law to let him share 
with him, as the Burbage faction claimed, Brayne did at any rate 
join with Burbage in a plan to build and conduct the Theatre on 
equal shares of expenses and profits, and appears even to have 
agreed, since he had no children, to leave his half interest at death 
to Burbage’s children, as represented in the Chancery bill of 1588. 
The new venture was entered upon with high hopes. Burbage 
raised all the money he could, even mortgaging the new lease to 
a money-lender for all he could get on it. Brayne sold his stock 
of groceries to Edward Collyns for 146/. and his house to the 
elder Collyns for 100/. The entire proceeds of 246/. he put into 
‘the building of the Theatre, 40/. of it going into iron-work alone. 
It was said by some of his friends afterwards that he borrowed 
still more, that he spent, some said, 500/., some 600/., some 700/., 
and that Burbage did not spend over 50/. One of the most 
partisan of the witnesses, Robert Myles, himself later litigiously 
interested in the Theatre by executorship, even says in 1592 that 
Burbage admitted he spent less than 100/. and further reports 
Brayne as saying Burbage spent but 37/. in money, and furnished 
timber to the value of 50/., charging sometimes 6d. for a groat’s 
worth of stuff. But Myles was Burbage’s deadly enemy. He 
adds that Brayne sold all he had to raise money, some 6001. to 
700/., pawned his clothes and also his wife’s, ran in debt, he and 
5 
