26 Charles William Wallace 
Theatre should be used as a playhouse but five of the twenty-one 
years, and should then be converted into tenements. This slow 
and partial consent was wrung from him after some two years 
of conference. 
Meanwhile, Allen permitted the continuance of the Theatre by 
receiving rent therefor in 1597 and 1598. ‘This sort of tenure 
was precarious. The lessor might on any rent day refuse to 
accept further payment, and thus close the playhouse. The Bur- 
bages were continuing simply under his sufferance, and were at 
his mercy. Allen himself declares in his Star Chamber suit of 
1602, that he had intended to tear the Theatre down and convert 
its materials to his own use. But he kept this purpose secret, 
and led the Burbages to believe that he would renew the lease, on 
the terms above stated. Cuthbert long demurred to the exorbi- 
tant terms, but after many conferences finally agreed, even yield- 
ing to the heavy condition, related by attorney Vigerous in 1600, 
of paying a fine or bonus of 100/. for the lease. Accordingly, 
Cuthbert Burbage prepared a lease, engrossed on parchment and 
provided with wax ready for sealing, which, from the testimony 
of Vigerous, he appears to have taken to Allen at his home in the 
country, at Haseley, Essex. Then at the final conference in 
London in Michaelmas, 1598, a hitch occurred over security. 
Cuthbert offered his brother Richard as security for the lease. 
But Allen “misliked” the notion, and would not accept him. 
This was only another of Allen’s excuses for not granting the 
lease. Thereupon, the negotiations were broken off, with some 
heat on both sides. This final conference took place at the George 
Inn in Shoreditch,? near the Theatre (not the George Inn of 
6 There were several George Inns of London at that time. The one in 
Shoreditch (a long distance from the one built by Brayne and Miles in 
Whitechapel) stood near the Theatre on or near Gyles Allen’s estate, and 
was the place where he stopped whenever he came to town, year after 
year, to collect his rents. Various depositions, as by Bett, Gascoyne, 
Hynde, and James on the one in Whitechapel, and by Baker, Goborne, 
and Johnson on Allen’s frequenting the one in Shoreditch and the con- 
ferences there held with the Burbages, suffice to prevent confusing the 
two. See previous note on the voluminous documents relating further to 
the one in Whitechapel. 
26 
