160 CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AT BLACKFRIARS 
plays were presented there.1 If the cause of this did not lie in f 
the Queen’s displeasure with the public theatres, the- suggestion 
of it is at least difficult to repress. 
half of the Essex conspirators was less than a year in the past,” 
and the Clifton attempt was but recently made. 
The Queen however found other amusement, and amply 
showed by her presence at Blackfriars December 29, as already 
noticed,* her clear purpose. This particular event, coming just 
a fortnight after the Clifton complaint, and publicly marking its 
failure to suppress Blackfriars, seems to have had some signifi- 
cance in official London. 
in Clifton’s attempt to suppress Blackfriars. But if he had suc- 
ceeded, the City as represented by the Lord Mayor would at least 
have been spared the Janian deification of features induced by 
the strain of moral solicitude in its next acts. | 
On the next day after the above event of the Queen’s attend- 
ance at Blackfriars, or at latest on the day after the next, the 
Lord Mayor renewed the City’s complaint, indicating that the 
number of playhouses and plays had greatly increased, and ask- 
ing for power to regulate them!* This looks like a most strange 
request in the light of the fact that this very power had been 
specifically granted, with the command also to exercise it, in the 
order of June 22, 1600. It seemed thus also to the Privy Coun- 
cil, who in their reply of the same or following day, December 
31, 1601, very courteously called attention to the inconsistency, 
and issued a sharp command to the City and justices to enforce, 
not some new order, but the former order of a year and a half 
ago.° 
The Richard II affair in be- — 
The City may not have had an interest © 
*T do not know the authority of 
Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phillips, op. cit., 
I, 201, for saying that Shakespeare’s 
company at this season presented 
four plays before her Majesty at 
Whitehall, one of which was prob- 
ably Twelfth Night. He does not 
get this from the Registers of the 
Privy Council, for the officials at 
the Office of the Privy Council in- 
form me that all records from Jan- 
uary 2, 1602, to 1613 were burned 
in the fire of Jan. 12, 1618. Also, 
the Office Book of the Treasurer of 
the Chamber shows no plays for 
this season, according to the Ex- 
tracts from the Accounts of the 
Revels at Court (ed. P. Cunning- 
ham, S. S. Pub. 1842), Introduction, 
XXVII-XXXiVv. 
F. G. Fleay, op. cit., 123, likewise 
was unable to find any Court-plays 
for 1601-[2]. 
"Supra, 157. 
° Supra, 95-97. 
*The only knowledge of the date 
and contents of this request is con- 
tained in the Privy Council’s an- 
swer (wu. 7., 160°). 
*See the two documents, one to 
274 
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