128 
Queen’s officials. 
CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AT BLACKFRIARS 
by her at Blackfriars. The public talked about it as did also the © 
Clifton based his suit on it, and the Duke of 
Stettin gained such official or semi-official information about it 
as enabled him to leave a record of the conditions that later moved 
him, as it seems, to action in establishing a troop of English actors 
at his court at heavy expense. 
The aristocratic folk of London, 
including members of the Court, knew these conditions under 
which Blackfriars was established and maintained, and were at- 
tracted to the plays there.*| The Queen herself, accompanied by 
her court-ladies, granted the grace of her presence there.? 
In the light of the evidence, 
The simple explanation is that her 
“erbauet’’® is not remarkable. 
the declaration of Gerschow’s 
Majesty provided for the establishment or setting up* and main- 
tenance of the theatre at Blackfriars under royal favor and at 
‘Infra, 164-66, 174, 176-77. 
* Supra, 95-97. 
*It would be a matter of great 
interest if it could be shown that 
James Burbage in 1596 purchased 
and set about remodeling the Black- 
friars in accordance with the 
Queen’s desire to set up these boys 
as actors, and that Gyles, then Mas- 
ter at Windsor, or Hunnis, whom 
Gyles in 1597 succeeded as Master 
of the Children of the Chapel Royal, 
had at the same time joined with 
Evans, the lessee of the theatre, to 
carry out these plans. But there is 
no evidence of it, I think, even in 
“erbauet” that has set some on a 
false scent. 
On the contrary, Clifton’s charges 
(though not much reliance is to be 
placed upon them for reasons al- 
ready shown, unless they are cor- 
roborative) indicate a date after 
the purchase, while the Globe- 
Blackfriars Share-Papers of 1635 
declare in reference to the purchase 
of Blackfriars that it “after was 
leased out to one Evans” (supra, 
57*). Also the fact that Evans 
did not take the twenty-one-year 
lease until he had proved the ven- 
ture a success points to the same. 
But I must admit the force of 
opposing considerations. In _ re- 
sponse to the petition of 1596 
2 
against Blackfriars, the Queen’s 
Council did nothing (supra, 18°, 53). 
The size of Blackfriars is against 
supposing Burbage intended it to 
supplant “The Theatre.” The new 
rooms built above the theatre were 
also peculiarly adaptable. But there 
is nothing more than unexplained 
suggestiveness in these points. It 
is to be hoped that other documents, ~ 
traces of which are known to me, 
may yet be brought to light and 
contribute something conclusive. 
*“Set up” and “erect” were used 
in a double sense in and long after 
Elizabeth’s time. Applied to the 
theatre as a physical structure, the 
sense was “build’; as a company, 
“establish.” The following, out of 
a large number of examples, suffice 
to illustrate :— 
“for erectinge, buildinge, and 
settinge upp of a newe howse and 
stadge for a_ plaie-howse.”’—Con- 
tract for the Fortune (1600), in J. 
O. Halliwell-Phillips, Outlines of 
the Life of Shakespeare (9th ed., 
1890), I, 305a. 
“nowe erectinge a Newe Play- 
house in that place.”—Privy Coun- 
cil Register, 26 Sept., 1615, on sup- 
pression of Rosseter’s Blackfriars 
theatre. See complete work, vols. 
77 
... to sett vp a Playhowse in 
42 
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