CHAPTER VI 
ae EVENTS, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW 
MANAGEMENT 
THE exact date of Clifton’s Complaint and the Decree of the 
Court would be of value in placing events in proper chronolcgical 
order. Both are determinable approximately, at least by year and 
court-term. 
Evans after three successful years, finding the venture profit- 
able enough to make it the business of his life, as already noted, 
leased the Blackfriars of Richard Burbage September 2, 1600, for 
a period of twenty-one years.2_ This was three and a half months 
prior to impressing young Thomas Clifton, Dec. 13. The Com- 
plaint to the Queen as we have seen, was made “about one yere’’’ 
after the offense; 2. ¢., in the fall or winter of 1601.4 Circum- 
stances lead to the feeling of some certainty that if the bill was 
not exhibited in court early in the Michaelmas (Oct.—Dec.) term, 
*This chapter was prepared for 
the press three years ago. Since 
then I have discovered certain doc- 
uments and data settling definitely 
some of the points in question. The 
corroborative and final nature of 
these gives some hope for the other 
items, when the field is fully worked ~ 
out. Had I come upon the new 
materials earlier, the chapter would 
not have taken its present form. 
But the matter is allowed to stand, 
with some security that the items 
dealt with will not hereafter be 
thrown into admired disorder as 
they have been in the past by dif- 
ferent writers. The whole chapter 
serves as an example of the severe 
process of elimination and exhaus- 
tion that I have had to follow in 
occasional parts of chapters where 
the sterner authority of documen- 
‘ tary declaration failed. 
*See supra, 57-57%. 
*See supra, 79". 
*Since writing these first five 
paragraphs, I have examined Clif- 
ton’s original Bill of Complaint at 
the Public Record Office. It bears 
no date on its face. But as is the 
case with all bills in Star Chamber, 
the date of filing is recorded on 
the back of the parchment. The 
date of trial is endorsed below this. 
“Marti decimo Quinto Decem- 
bris Anno xliiij Elizabeth 
Regine 
Willm Mill 
p octab Hillar” 
Mr. James Greenstreet, who dis- 
covered this document, failed to 
note its date when he published it 
in The Athenaeum, 10 Aug., 1889, 
203-4. Dependence. upon his publi- 
cation as accurate long led me to 
suppose the document undated. 
198 
