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BLACKFRIARS THEATRE BUILDING 27 
According to the Petition of the inhabitants of Blackfriars 
_ precincts in 1596, there were others of the nobility and gentry 
_ in the neighborhood. The deed of a dwelling-house and grounds 
by Henry Walker to William Shakespeare in 1613? shows that 
_ formerly John Fortescue® had lived in that house, and at present 
Henry, Earl of Northumberland, occupied adjoining property. 
The prominent families of the Blackwells and the Bacons also 
_ resided near. The Chancery documents concerning Shakespeare 
and others in 1615, which I recently discovered in the Public 
Record Office,t give the names of others,—particularly Sir 
Thomas Bendish, Robert Dormer, Edward Newport, and addi- 
tional members of the Blackwell and Bacon families. In various 
other unpublished documents in the Public Record Office I have 
met with the names of additional more or less prominent mem- 
bers of the nobility and gentry of the time in connection with 
property transactions in the Blackfriars. Documents published 
by Stowe® give some of the earliest names, in Henry VIII, as Sir 
John Portenary, Lord Cobham, Lord Zanche, Sir Thomas Cheney, 
Sir William Kingston, Sir Francis Brian. But certain unpub- 
lished documents which I have come upon in the Guildhall ar- 
chives® indicate that the most of the Blackfriars inhabitants were 
not of the wealthy class. The same impression is given by sev- 
eral allusions to working people in documents published by 
Stowe,’ as also by the mention of the feather-makers, Puritans, 
&c., of Blackfriars in contemporary dramas. From all evidences 
I conclude that the aristocratic part was on the higher slope of 
the hill, limited practically to the district occupied formerly by 
*Cf. supra, 17°. 
*See deed and mortgage in Hal- 
liwell-Phillips, op. cit., II, 31-36. 
°Sir John? 
“See the three documents in ex- 
tenso with introductory article pub- 
lished by me in The Standard 
(daily), London, Oct. 18, 1905, p. 5; 
type-facsimiles of them with sep- 
arate article in University of Ne- 
braska Studies, October, 1905, 347- 
56; type-facsimiles with brief article 
in Englische Studien (ed. Johannes 
oops, Heidelberg) 1905-6, 
XXXVI, 56-63; photo-engraved re- 
duced facsimiles of two of the doc- 
uments (Bill and Answer) in New 
Shakespeariana, April, 1906, front- 
ispieces; originals in Public Record 
Office, London, under Chancery 
Proceedings, Bills and Answers, 
James I, Bundle B11, No. 9; and 
Court of Chancery, Decrees and Or- 
ders, vol. 1614“A,” p.- 1074. 
*John Stowe, op. cit. (ed. 1633), 
3770. 
°E. g., Letter Book Z, fol. 23-28. 
7John Stowe, op. cit. (ed. 1633), 
3757. 
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