Dinh, ey te 
red, 
CHAPTER III 
ESTABLISHMENT OF BLACKFRIARS THEATRE UNDER 
OFFICIAL GRANTS 
THE first and only lessee of the Blackfriars thus fitted up for a 
private theatre was one Henry Evans.! He took it for the pur- 
pose of exercising one branch of the Queen’s Children of the — 
Chapel in the acting of plays under certain official documentary 
assurances® that allowed him the privilege of private profit from 
rehearsing them publicly. 
The date of Evans’s first contract with Burbage is difficult if 
not impossible at present to determine. Certain considerations 
indicate a very early date. The statement in the Diary of the 
Duke of Stettin? concerning the Queen’s establishing this theatre 
for the special training of the Children, taken in connection with 
the fact that Evans had certain official assurances concerning the 
exercise and employment of these Boys theatrically, suggests a 
possible date prior to the purchase and refitting. On the other 
hand, the statement of the Burbages in the Globe-Blackfriars 
1 RDP NRA Ne IN ee Ne a 
inh OE Ne a Leh DR eed wh 
+ a 5 ar te 
*“The pleas in the lawsuit of 
1635 show that the Burbages, the 
owners, leased the Blackfriars The- 
atre after its establishment in 1597 
for a long term of years to the 
master of the Children of the Chap- 
el.”—Sidney Lee, A Life of Wil- 
liam Shakespeare (5th ed. 1905), 
209. 
The above sentence contains cer- 
tain errors of fact overlooked by 
Mr. Lee:— (1) The pleas in the 
1635 suit show none of the items 
mentioned, and (2) they do not 
name or otherwise mention the 
master of the Children of the Chap- 
el (Nathaniel Gyles) but do name 
Henry Evans as lessee. (3) The 
Blackfriars was owned, at the time 
of the lease, by Richard Burbage 
alone who (4) was the lessor to 
Evans (5) before, not after, the 
theatre was established in 1597. (6) 
These last three items, as also that 
of the “long term of years” are 
shown not by the 1635 suit (cf. 
pertinent part in full, infra, 57°), 
but in two suits of 1612,—Evans ws. 
Kirkham (G.-F. 210-22) and Kirk- 
ham vs. Painton (G.-F. 223-51). 
[Since making this note on the pub- 
lished documents containing the 
above items, I have discovered sey- 
eral others containing the same 
items,—but not yet published — 
those on the Blackfriars (wu. s., 36*), 
and those which give the origin 
of “shares” in London theatres and 
Shakespeare’s financial interest 
from the first in the Globe and 
Blackfriars: -(1.ws.,- ix=x, > 342) 4an. 
45°) ]. 
* Infra, 81-82. 
SInfra, 106-7. 
170 
PO ee ee Se ee 
