161 
THE QUEEN’S PURPOSES 
The City’s solicitation for power when they already had it is 
clearly a pretense inspired by some new hope of success in its old 
contention. The Privy Council’s surprise that during the past 
- order is simply a counter pretense; for the theatres were a large 
element in the social life of London, and their doings were 
Both 
known to no one better than to the Queen and her Court. 
actions are simply secure moves on the chess-board. 
_ The City authorities finding no change of front and getting 
not the concession they craved concerning Blackfriars but a rep- 
- etition of the definite and specific order of 1600 for restrictions 
_ of only the public theatres, quietly let the order die, just as in the 
former cases.1 There is no evidence that they made the slightest 
peor at restraint.? 
Dthe City and one to the county mag- 
irate, both dated Dec. 31, 1601, 
in ig O. Halliwell- Phillips, op. cit.; 
I, 308-309. 
.: *That it was the Queen’s private 
establishment in liberties within the 
City yet outside its control that 
irked the municipal authorities is 
proved over and over by circum- 
stances, as presented in the preced- 
ee pages. A clinching proof is 
their attitude in 1618-[19].  _Em- 
 poldened by their success in secur- 
ing the suppression of Rossiter’s 
s theatre in the Blackfriars precincts, 
1615-17, they set about to find a 
< way to carry out their long-cher- 
_ ished desire to suppress the present 
_ Blackfriars theatre, and thereby gain 
a conceded right of control looking 
_ toward the full establishment of 
their long contention. 
The City now (1618-[19]) de- 
_ cided that the Blackfriars was a 
“public” theatre and therefore fell 
under the late Queen’s orders of 
~ 1600-1601! So they issued a com- 
mand suppressing it in accordance 
with those long-dead orders! !— 
Eighteen years after!! Nothing 
could have been more absurd, for 
in the first place the Queen’s orders 
in question had never been. enforced 
against any theatre even at the time 
. CO ON nage Co has Ss 
of issue, and in the second place 
the Privy Council under James in 
1604, April 9 (wu. s., 149*-50), had 
revoked those dead orders. More- 
over, the Queen had in the 1600- 
1601 orders exempted the Black- 
friars by astutely specifying “public” 
or “common” theatres, thus pre- 
venting the City’s desired operation 
against her private theatre. 
The dog-in-the-manger figure of 
the City Council from 1597 to 1603, 
and their sudden awakening eigh- 
teen years after to enforce those old 
orders,—even after long revoked,— 
against the very theatre they 
shielded, but against no other, is as 
comical as it is convincing and final 
proof of the conditions as I have 
analyzed them. 
See further on earlier phases of 
the City’s contention and the order 
of 1618-[19], supra, 21", 53, 153-54". 
?With the assistance of Dr. 
Sharp, Superintendent, I have 
searched the City archives at the 
Guildhall in vain for evidence of 
action in any one of the several 
foregoing orders. If the City had 
acted in any single instance, there 
. would certainly be some sort of 
trace left, as in the suppression of 
Rossiter’s theatre in the same pre- 
cints in 1615-17; in the effort to 
‘ 275 
