82 CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AT BLACKFRIARS 
gentlemen’s childeren against theire wills and to ymploy them for 
players, and for other misdemeanors in the said Decree conteyned 
and ffurther that all assureances made to the said Evans con- 
cerninge the said house or playes or Interludes should be vtterlye 
voyde, and to be deliuered vpp to be cancelled as by the said De- — 
cree more at large it doth and may appeare.”? 
This decree was rendered simply upon the presentation of the 
side of the prosecution. No “Bill of Answer,” “Replication” or 
“Rejoinder” was apparently allowed.? Had there been, we should 
expect to find these additional records filed with the Bill of Com- 
plaint, as is the custom in such cases in most English courts of 
the period. . 
Although Clifton declared that not only his boy but all the 
other seven he names as well as those not named were unwill- | 
ingly, forcibly, and “‘vniustlie taken, vsed & employed,’ it seems 
quite likely that if it had not been for Court-influence, possibly 
through Sir John Fortescue, in enforcing the really minor claim 
of personal injury to Clifton’s feelings, the case might not have 
been entertained. For the decree by no means accomplished what 
he aimed at, the suppression of Blackfriars theatre, and fell only 
upon the chief offender against him. 
This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that the decree was 
based wholly upon ‘“‘the taking up of gentlemen’s children,’—a 
statement which, so far as can be determined, fits only Clifton’s 
case.* It is further strengthened by the fierce satire in act V, 
scene v, of Chapman’s The Widow’s Tears (September, 1602). 
This is the first known new play that could have been wholly 
composed and written after the decision, and is bitter in its attack 
upon one-sided justice, in which neither “replications” nor “re- 
joinders” are allowed, and only two persons are heard in the case, 
with judgment rendered “at first sight,” &c.° It cannot be de- 
clared with the certainty of documentary statement that the satire 
was meant for this case. But as we have documentary evidence 
that The Widow’s Tears containing this satire was acted in Sep- 
tember, 1602, it is difficult to see how the Blackfriars audience 
1G.-F., 248c. ‘Cf. supra, 80°; infra, 180°, 180°. 
*Cf. infra, 82°, 86-87'. °See further under “Plays” in 
SAthenaeum (10 Aug. 1889), vol. II of forthcoming work. 
205; G.-F., 128. 
196 
