The First London Theatre £7 
was a principal owner until his death in 1636, forty-seven years 
after this fateful venture. It is the accident rather than the 
essential that makes careers. And by this circumstance, condi- 
tions arose which not only shaped the careers of Cuthbert and 
Richard Burbage, but also made a Shakespeare possible. 
Meanwhile, the controversy between widow Brayne and James 
Burbage raged. By Cuthbert’s purchase, he was drawn into it, 
and then Richard also was made a party to the various suits. 
On November 4, 1590, the widow had obtained the court’s order 
for a sequestration of the property, granting her the moiety 
claimed, until the case could be heard. But on the 13th, Cuth- 
bert got that order stayed, and was granted instead the Court’s . 
order for both parties to perform the terms of the arbitrament 
of 1578—which, of course, he knew was impossible for the 
widow, and amounted in effect to a decision against her. Never- 
theless, three days later, November 16, 1590, she and Robert 
Miles, his son Ralph, and their friend Nicholas Bishop assembled 
themselves and took a copy of the order to the Theatre to force 
James Burbage to perform its terms. It was on a play day, just 
as the people were beginning to come to see the performance. 
The parties concerned, and others then present, notably John 
Allen, afterwards related graphic portions of the scene that 
ensued. 
When the invaders arrived in the Theatre yard, James Bur- 
bage put his head out of the window, and a lively exchange of 
epithets followed. Then Burbage came down. He told Miles 
that that Court order was but a piece of paper fit for base soilure, 
and called him a knave and a rascal, and named the widow as 
“murdering whore.” She and her supporters were determined 
none the less to carry out their purpose “to ftand at the do™ that 
goeth vppe to the galleries of the faid Theatre, to take & Receyve 
for the vfe of the faid Margarett, half the money that fhuld be 
gyven to come vppe into the faid Gallaries at that do.” 
By that time, Mrs. Burbage, accompanied by her younger son 
Richard, then about nineteen or twenty years old, arrived on the 
scene, and “charged them to go out of her grounde, or elles fhe 
wold make her fone breake ther knaves heades, and fo hottelie 
17 
