[756] Pipe Office, Declared Accounts (Revels), 2805.

[757] Thorndike, 191.

[758] Cf. p. 217.

[759] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 206.

[760] Horace, De Arte Poetica, 343:

Horace's treatise was first translated into English by Thomas Drant in 1567; cf. O. L. Jiriczek, Der Elisabethanische Horaz (1911, Sh.-Jahrbuch, xlvii. 42).

[761] Plutarch, Quomodo adolescens poetas audire debet, c. xii.

[762] Donatus (ed. Wessner, i. 22), Excerpta de Comoedia; cf. Hamlet, III. ii. 23, also Gosson's criticism of Lodge's scholarship on this point in App. C, No. xxx.

[763] W. H. Woodward, Studies in Education during the Age of the Renaissance, 218; C. H. Herford, Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century, 101.

[764] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 216.

[765] Extract in App. C, No. v. Symmes, 31, cites Peter Martyr Vermigli as representing the same point of view, but the passage on plays in his In librum Iudicum Commentarii (1563), c. 14, reproduced in his Loci Communes (1563), Classis ii, c. 12, is not very lucid.

[766] J. E. Gillet (M. L. A. xxxiv. 465), citing e.g. an utterance of 1530, 'Et ego non illibenter viderem gesta Christi in scholis puerorum ludis seu comoediis latine et germanice rite ac pure compositis repraesentari propter rei memoriam et affectum iunioribus augendum'.

[767] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 111.

[768] Robert Laneham's Letter (ed. Furnivall), 27.

[769] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 224, 446.

[770] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 222. The passage quoted is from the Epistel Exhortatorye of an Inglyshe Christian (1544), written under the pseudonym of Henry Stalbridge. Foxe, Book of Martyrs, vi. 57, says of Bishop Gardiner, 'He thwarteth and wrangleth much against players, printers, preachers. And no marvel why: for he seeth these three things to be set up of God, as a triple bulwark against the triple crown of the Pope to bring him down; as, God be praised, they have done meetly well already.'

[771] Cf. ch. v.

[772] Strype, Annals, 1. ii. 436, 'Sithence the comynge and reigne of our most soveraigne and dear lady quene Elizabeth, by the onely preachers and scaffold players of this newe religion, all thinges are turned up-side downe, and notwithstandinge the quenes majesties proclamations most godly made to the contrarye, and her vertuous example of lyvinge, sufficyent to move the hearts of all obedyent subjects to the due service and honour of God.' If a proclamation as to plays is meant, it must be the earlier one of 8 April 1559, as the speech was probably delivered in the debate on the second reading of the Act of Uniformity on 26 April. Strype, 1. i. 109, points out that it is definitely assigned by Cotton MS. Vesp. D. 18, to Feckenham, and that Burnet's ascription to Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, which has been followed by Collier, i. 168, and others, rests on a mistaken note by a later hand on a copy in a C. C. C. C. Synodalia MS.

[773] V. P. vii. 65, 71, 80.

[774] Sp. P. i. 62 (29 April 1559), 'She was very emphatic in saying that she wished to punish severely certain persons who had represented some comedies in which your Majesty was taken off. I passed it by, and said that these were matter of less importance than the others, although both in jest and earnest more respect ought to be paid to so great a prince as your Majesty, and I knew that a member of her Council had given the arguments to construct these comedies, which is true, for Cecil gave them, as indeed she partly admitted to me.'

[775] Sp. P. i. 247. England and Protestantism got as good as they gave. Bohun, 99, records how, about 1560-2, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was made the butt of French court jesters and comedians. Mary of Scotland was hardly persuaded, in 1565, to punish some Catholics who had made a play against the ministers, with a mock baptism of a cat in it (Randolph to Cecil, in Wright, Eliz. i. 190).

[776] Cf. ch. v.

[777] Cf. ch. xxii.

[778] Calvin, Opera, xxi. 207 (Annales Calviniani), gives prohibitions made under Farel's influence in 1537; for earlier records, cf. E. Doumergue, Jean Calvin, iii. 579; H. D. Foster, Geneva before Calvin in American Hist. Review, viii. 231.

[779] A. L. Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs dans les pays de langue française, i. 195, 'Christianum alienum oportet a bachanalibus quae gentium more celebrantur, et ab hypocrisi Iudaica in ieiuniis et aliis quae non directore spiritu fiunt: ac cavere oportet a simulachris quam maxime.' Possibly, however, 'simulachra' means 'images' rather than 'disguisings'.

[780] Calvin, Opera, xᵃ. 5, 16.

[781] The proceedings against Mme Françoise Perrin for allowing a dance in her house are described in A. Roget, Hist. du Peuple de Genève, ii. 225. In 1550 the council resolved (Calvin, Opera, xxi. 460), 'Item des ordonnances des dances qu'elles ne soyent point admoindries mais que l'on ne soufre pas cela. Surquoy est arreste que soyent faictes cries a voix de trompe que nulz naye a danser ny chanter chansons deshonnestes ny dancer en façon que soit: sur poienne de estre mis troys iours en prison en pain et eaue et de soixante sols pour une chescune foy la moytie applique a l'hospital et laultre moytie a la court'. In 1557 (Opera, xxi. 662) persons were brought before the consistory on an accusation of 'insolences faictes a un royaulme'. They had a cake, and in one girl's slice 'y mirent ung grain de genievre et pour ce lappellerent Royne et crierent a aulte voix la Royne boit'.

[782] Calvin, Opera, xxi. 379; cf. Roget, ii. 235.

[783] Calvin, Opera, xxi. 382; cf. Roget, ii. 238, 'Aulcungs joueurs des antiques et puissance de Hercules ont prié que plaise a MM. de les laisser jouer de bonne grâce la bataille des Mores et puissance de Harodes et aultres antiques héros. Arresté pour obvier scandalle que ne doibgent point jouer, mes que demain se doibgent retirer.' Cf. the notices of the Hercules performances at Paris in 1572 and at Utrecht in 1586 (ch. xiii, s.v. Leicester's), and p. 152, n. 1, for an early Italian parallel.

[784] Calvin, Opera, xxi. 381-4; cf. Roget, ii. 236; Doumergue, iii. 579; W. Walker, John Calvin, 298.

[785] Calvin, Ep. 800 (Opera, xii. 347), '... Nihil hic habemus novi, nisi quod secunda comedia iam cuditur. Cuius actionem testati sumus nobis minime probari. Pugnare tamen ad extremum noluimus, quia periculum erat ne elevaremus nostram autoritatem, si pertinaciter repugnando tandem vinceremur. Video non posse negari omnia oblectamenta. Itaque mihi satis est si hoc, quod non est adeo vitiosum, indulgeri sibi intelligant, sed nobis invitis....' This was on 3 June. Ep. 807 (Opera, xii. 355), of 4 July, describes the dissensions amongst the ministers, and adds, 'Auditis fratribus, respondi multas ob causas nobis non videri expedire ut agerentur, et simul causas exposui; nos tamen nolle contendere, si senatus contenderet ... nunc ludi aguntur'.

[786] Calvin, Ep. 802 (Opera, xii. 351) 'Farellus Calvino ... Isti qui tam delectantur ludis, utinam non serio dolore torqueantur. Timendum est, ne qui alienis personis oblectantur quum propriam in Christo debeant sustinere in omni genere officiorum, ne ferre cogantur non personatos, qui fingunt nocere, sed qui nimis vere afflictent et angant. Sed quis tandem perfectam ... habebit plebem? Utinam in malis personati tandem essent, nec aliquid ipsi facerent, tantum aliorum peccata repraesentarent ... omnes ea vitarent, in bonis veri essent actores, imo factores.... 16 Iunii, 1546.'

[787] Calvin, Sermo, cxxvi (Opera, xxviii. 18), 'Ainsi donc ce n'est point sans cause que ceste loy a esté mise; et ceux qui prennent plaisir à se desguiser, despittent Dieu: comme en ces masques, et en ces momons, quand les femmes s'accoustrent en hommes, et les hommes en femmes, ainsi qu'on en fait: et qu'adviendra-t-il? Encores qu'il n'y eust point nulle mauvaise queue, la chose en soy est desplaisante à Dieu: nous oyons ce qui en est ici prononcé: Quiconques le fait, est en abomination.' Other sermons, e.g. Sermo lvii, condemn dances and jeux generally, without any special stress on plays; cf. P. Lobstein, Die Ethik Calvins, 113.

[788] Calvin, Opera, xxi. 385.

[789] Calvin, Opera, xxi. 406, 450, 684, 734; Roget, ii. 238, 243; iii. 139; vi. 192; Doumergue, iii. 579, sqq.

[790] Discipline des Églises Réformées, ch. xiv, art. 28 (Bulletin de la Soc. de l'Hist, du Protestantisme, xxxv. 211), 'Il ne sera aussi permis aux fidèles d'assister aux comédies, tragédies, farces, moralités et autres jeux, joués en public ou en particulier, vu que de tout temps cela a été défendu entre chrétiens, comme apportant corruption de bonnes mœurs, mais surtout quand l'Écriture sainte est profanée; néanmoins, quand, dans un collège, il sera trouvé utile à la jeunesse de représenter quelque histoire, on la pourra tolérer pourvu qu'elle ne soit comprise en l'Écriture sainte, qui n'est pas donnée pour être jouée, mais purement prêchée, et aussi que cela se fasse rarement et par l'avis du Colloque qui en verra la composition.' The original decree of the Synod of Poitiers in 1560, to which this was an addition, only laid down that 'les momeries et batelleries ne seront point souffertes, ni faire le Roi boit, ni le Mardi gras'.

[791] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Calfhill, for Walter Haddon's somewhat slighting reference to his theatri celebritas.

[792] Parker Correspondence (Parker Soc.), 226.

[793] Strype, Annals (1824), III. i. 496. Smith had said, 'Si illud verum sit quod auditione accepi, istius modi certe ludos diris devoveo et actores et spectatores'.

[794] I am not writing the history of the Oxford stage, but it is pertinent to note that a statute of 1584, just as Case was writing, had excluded common stage-plays from the University, both on grounds of health and economy, and that 'the younger sort ... may not be spectatours of so many lewde and evill sports as in them are practised' (Boas, 225).

[795] Northbrooke, 103. Stubbes took the same line in the Preface to his first edition, but afterwards cancelled the passage.

[796] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 18.

[797] Gosson, P. C. 195.

[798] Gosson, P. C. 169.

[799] Gosson, P. C. 197.

[800] Gosson, P. C. 188; Munday, 145.

[801] A. Y. L. III. iii. 17.

[802] Northbrooke, 92; Munday, 144; Stubbes, 140.

[803] Gosson, S. A. 35; P. C. 215; Munday, 139.

[804] Northbrooke, 92; Stockwood, 23; Munday, 128; Field, Epistle.

[805] White, 46; Gosson, P. C. 215.

[806] Stubbes, 180, speaks of serious accidents at theatres due to panic at an earthquake, which must be that of 6 April 1580; but the account published at the time (cf. App. C, No. xxv) makes no reference to theatres, although it does, oddly enough, record that the only deaths were those of two children who were listening to a sermon in Christ Church, Newgate.

[807] The fall of the Paris Garden bear-baiting house on 13 January 1583 led John Field, in his A Godly Exhortation (1583) on that event, which is closely related to the anti-stage literature, to anticipate a similar fate for the theatres. The Puritans should have taken to heart the wise comment of Sir Thomas More on a similar occasion (cf. ch. xvi, s.v. Hope).

[808] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Marlowe, Dr. Faustus.

[809] Cf. App. C, Nos. iv, ix, x, xiv, xix. Something might be added from the prefaces of the Senecan translators (cf. ch. xxiii).

[810] Gosson, P. C. 201.

[811] Gosson, P. C. 203.

[812] Northbrooke, 92; Munday, 139; Stubbes, 143.

[813] Northbrooke, 92; cf. Stubbes, 144.

[814] Munday, 150.

[815] Gosson, P. C. 182; Munday, 147.

[816] Gosson, S. A. 37.

[817] Cf. ch. ix and App. C, No. xl.

[818] B. Fair, i. 2, 3, 6; iii. 2, 6; iv. 1, 6; v. 5; cf. Jonson's Epigr. lxxv. On Lippe the Teacher. I suppose that the treatise on the question of sex-apparel which Selden sent to Jonson in 1616 (App. C, No. lxii) was meant to furnish annotations for B. Fair.

[819] Heywood, 24.

[820] Heywood, 43, 61.

[821] Cf. App. J.

[822] Gosson, P. C. 211.

[823] Henslowe, i. 136, records a payment of 10s. by the Admiral's in May 1601, 'to geatte the boye into the ospetalle which was hurt at the Fortewne'. At St. James, Clerkenwell, was buried on 26 May 1613 (Harl. Soc. xvii. 123) 'John Brittine yᵗ was killed with a fall in the Pley howse'. There was a shooting accident also in an Admiral's play of 1587; cf. ch. xiii.

[824] Cf. ch. xviii.

[825] One of the charges brought against the Venetian ambassador Foscarini on his return to Venice in 1616 was that he had tried to seduce the penitent of an English religious attached to the embassy, 'sometimes attending the public comedies and standing among the people on the chance of seeing her' (Venetian Papers, xiv. 593). About 1594 a diamond stolen from the loot of a Spanish carrack was bought by some goldsmiths from a mariner whom they met by chance 'at a play in the theatre at Shoreditch', and who afterwards showed them the diamond in Finsbury Fields (Cecil Papers, vii. 504).

[826] Cf. ch. xvi, s.v. Bull.

[827] In Stukeley, 610, the hero owes the bailiff of Finsbury, 'for frays and bloodshed in the Theatre fields, five marks'. The Middlesex justices had to deal with cases of stealing a purse at the Curtain in 1600, of a 'notable outrage' at the Red Bull in 1610, of abusing gentlemen at the Fortune in 1611, of stealing a purse at the Red Bull in 1613, and of stabbing at the Fortune in 1613 (Middlesex County Records, i. 205, 217, 259; ii. xlvii, 64, 71, 86, 88). On 7 July 1602 James wrote from Scotland to one James Hudson to intercede with the Council for John Henslay or Henchelawe of Grimsby, who was assaulted by Nicholas Blinstoun or Blunston at a play about the previous Whitsunday (23 May), and slew him (Scottish Papers, ii. 815; Hatfield MSS. xii. 363). Dekker (ii. 326), in Jests to Make you Merrie (1607), gives the private playhouse as the habitat of the 'foist' or pickpocket, and says, 'The times when his skirmishes are hottest, or yᵉ time when they run attilt, is ... a new play'. Again (iii. 158), in The Belman of London (1608), he tells us that rogues haunt playhouses, and (iii. 212) in Lanthorne and Candlelight (1609), 'A foyst nor a nip shall not walke into a fayre or a Play-house, but euerie cracke will cry looke to your purses'.

[828] Divers persons were slain and others hurt and wounded in an attempt to pull down the Cockpit in Drury Lane on Shrove Tuesday 1617 (M. S. C. i. 374); cf. Camden, Annales (4 March 1617), 'Theatrum ludionum nuper erectum in Drury-Lane a furente multitudine diruitur, et apparatus dilaceratur'; John Taylor, Jack a Lent (1620, ed. Hindley), 'Put play houses to the sack and bawdy houses to the spoil'; The Owles Almanack (1618), 9, 'Shroue-tuesday falls on that day, on which the prentices plucked downe the cocke-pit, and on which they did alwayes vse to rifle Madam Leakes house, at the vpper end of Shorditch'. This was not Puritanism, but a traditional Saturnalia of apprentices at Shrovetide; cf. Earle, Microcosmography, char. 64 (A Player), 'Shrove-tuesday he feares as much as the bawdes'; Busino, Anglopotrida (1618, V. P. xv. 246), describing the bands of prentices, 3,000 or 4,000 strong, who on Shrove Tuesday and 1 May do outrages in all directions, especially the suburbs, where they destroy houses of correction; E. Gayton, Festivous Notes upon Don Quixote (1654), 271, 'I have known upon one of these festivals, but especially at Shrove-tide, where the players have been appointed, notwithstanding their bills to the contrary, to act what the major part of the company had a mind to. Sometimes Tamerlane, sometimes Jugurtha, sometimes The Jew of Malta, and sometimes parts of all these; and at last, none of the three taking, they were forced to undress and put off their tragick habits, and conclude the day with The Merry Milkmaides. And unless this were done, and the popular humour satisfied (as sometimes it so fortun'd that the players were refractory), the benches, the tiles, the laths, the stones, oranges, apples, nuts, flew about most liberally; and as there were mechanicks of all professions, who fell every one to his trade, and dissolved a house in an instant, and made a ruin of a stately fabric'.

[829] Most of these letters are printed in Wright, Eliz.; a few are still unprinted among the Lansdowne and Hatfield MSS.; cf. App. D, Nos. xxxv, xxxvii, lxxiv.

[830] Gosson, S. A. 56; P. C. Epistle, 178.

[831] Munday, 128.

[832] Occasionally players were of use as spies. On 30 March 1603 four players gave information of an alleged proclamation of Lord Beauchamp as king by Lord Southampton (Hist. MSS. xiii. 4. 126).

[833] Cf. App. D, Nos. xl, liii, lviii, lxxi, lxxiii, lxxv, lxxxiv, lxxxv, ci, cxiv. The notion of the need of the public, as distinct from that of the Queen, for dramatic recreation gradually makes its appearance (cf. especially App. D, No. cii); but imperial Rome might have taught its lesson of panem et circenses.

[834] Taylor, Wit and Mirth (1629, Hazlitt, Jest Books, iii. 62), burlesques the point of view in a story of the visit of the Queen's ape to Looe in Cornwall. The showman approached the mayor, who did visit and 'put off his hat and made a leg', and there was a proclamation, 'These are to will and require you, and every of you, with your wives and families, that upon the sight hereof, you make your personall appearance before the Queenes Ape, for it is an Ape of ranke and quality, who is to bee practised through her Majesties dominions, that by his long experience amongst her loving subjects, hee may bee the better enabled to doe her majesty service hereafter; and hereof faile you not, as you will answer the contrary'.

[835] App. D, No. liv.

[836] Hawarde, 48, records that in a Star Chamber case of cozening on 18 June 1596 'The Lord Treasurer would haue those yᵗ make the playes to make a comedie hereof, & to acte it with these names'; cf. p. 244. In Hatfield MSS. vii. 270 is a 'lewd saucy letter' of 25 June 1597 from Sir John Hollis to Burghley, who on the last Star Chamber day had pronounced Hollis's great-grandfather 'an abominable usurer, a merchant of broken paper, so hateful and contemptible a creature that the players acted him before the King [Henry VII or VIII] with great applause'. It is printed in H. Walpole, Royal and Noble Authors (ed. Park, ii. 283).

[837] App. C, No. xlv. Was this the Chapel Game of the Cards on 26 Dec. 1582, or was it the play in which Tarlton (cf. ch. xv) glanced at Raleigh as the knave commanding the queen?

[838] These interventions were the Admiral's men in 1600 and for Oxford's and Worcester's men in 1602 (cf. App. D, Nos. cxvii, cxxx).

[839] Aydelotte, 58, misrepresents the Act of 1531 on this point. The clearest proof that the unprotected player was a vagabond is in a Privy Council letter of 30 April 1556 to Lord Shrewsbury (Lodge, i. 260), which, after directing that Sir Francis Leek shall not let his servants travel as players, adds, 'And in case any person shall attempt to set forth these sort of games or pastimes at any time hereafter, contrary to this order; and do wander, for that purpose, abroad in the country; your Lordship shall do well to give the Justices of the Peace in charge to see them apprehended out of hand, and punished as vagabonds, by virtue of the statute made against loitering and idle persons'.

[840] Cf. App. C, s.vv. Gosson (1582), 215; Cox (1591); App. D, No. lxxv (2) (b). An Act of 1552 (5 & 6 Edw. VI, c. 21) required every travelling 'Pedler, Tynker, or Pety Chapman' to have a licence from two justices of the shire in which he resided (Statutes, iv. 155). This was merged in the Act of 1572 (App. D, No. xxiv), but not formally repealed until 1 Jac. I, c. 25, in 1604 (Statutes, iv. 1052).

[841] Procl. 455; cf. Dasent, v. 73; Machyn, 69.

[842] Cf. M. S. C. i. 350; Aydelotte, 14. Procl. 273 laid down (1545) 'that noe person of what estate, degree or condicion soever he be, doe in any wise hereafter name or avowe any man to be his servant, unles he be his houshold servant, or his bailiffe or keeper, or such other as he may keepe and retayne by the lawes and statutes of this realme, or be retayned by the kings maiestys licence' (Hazlitt, E. D. S. 7). But the laws against retainers had fallen into desuetude again by 1572; cf. App. D, No. xix.

[843] Scargill-Bird³, 80; W. R. Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, ii. 1. 55; H. Hall, Studies in English Official Historical Documents, 263; M. S. C. i. 260. The stages of a patent, as settled by 27 Hen. VIII, c. 11 (1535), were (a) a Petition setting out the grant desired, and (b) a direction by the Sovereign for the preparation of (c) a King's Bill. In this the wording of the intended patent was settled, and this wording was followed, with varying initial and final formulae, in the subsequent instruments. The King's Bill received the royal Sign Manual and became the authority for the issue by a Clerk to the Signet of (d) a Signet Bill. This was sent to the Lord Privy Seal, who based upon it (e) a Writ of Privy Seal, which was addressed to the Lord Chancellor, and became in its turn the authority for the issue of (f) the actual Letters Patent under the Great Seal. These were handed to the recipient, while the Writ of Privy Seal passed on to the Six Clerks in Chancery, for (g) an Enrolment of its contents upon the Patent Roll.

[844] Cf. ch. ii.

[845] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 216.

[846] Cf. App. D, Nos. ii-v.

[847] Dasent, iii. 307.

[848] S. P. D. Edw. VI, xv. 33. By 5 & 6 Edw. VI of 1552 (Statutes, iv. 155) travelling tinkers and pedlars could hold a licence from two justices of the peace. This arrangement is continued by the Act of 1572 (vide infra), and tinkers and pedlars are there grouped with players. Possibly therefore such local licences had also been issued to players who were not 'servants', even before 1572.

[849] Dasent, i. 104, 109, 110, 122. The nature of the joiners' offence is clear; three of those imprisoned were named Hawtrell, Lucke, and Lucas. They had played 'wythowt respect ether off the day or the ordre whiche was knowen openlye the Kinges Highnes intended to take for repressinge off playes'. At the same time the Lord Warden's men were committed 'for playing contrary to an ordre taken by the Mayour'.

[850] P. F. Tytler, England under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary, i. 21, from S. P. D. Edw. VI, i. 5.

[851] Gildersleeve, 5, points out that I was misled by Collier, i. 119, into citing the Marian proclamation in Mediaeval Stage, ii. 220, under 1533 as well as 1553. I regret the error.

[852] Dasent, vi. 102. The Lord Mayor is to send offending players 'to the Commissioners for Religion to be by them further ordered, and also to take ordre that no playe be made hencefourthe within the Citie except the same be first seen and allowed and the players aucthorised'.

[853] Cf. ch. xxii and App. D, Nos. ix, xii, xiii. The Commission had also an authority over vagrants in or near London, which apparently disappeared after the legislation of 1572 (vide infra).

[854] There is a doubtful notice of a Court play by the servants of George Evelyn of Wotton in 1588. Sir Percival Hart's sons played in 1565.

[855] The list of small travelling companies in Murray, ii. 77, 113, includes 14 belonging to knights and 3 to gentlemen in 1558-72, and 8 belonging to knights and 2 to gentlemen in 1573-97; also 7 companies under the names of their towns only in 1558-72 and 11 in 1573-97. Alexander Houghton of Lea in Lancashire wrote on 3 Aug. 1581 (G. J. Piccope, Lancashire and Cheshire Wills, ii. 238), 'Yt ys my wyll that Thomas Houghton of Brynescoules my brother shall have all my instrumentes belonginge to mewsyckes and all maner of playe clothes yf he be mynded to keppe and doe keppe players. And yf he wyll not keppe and maynteyne playeres then yt ys my wyll that Sir Thomas Heskethe Knyghte shall haue the same instrumentes and playe clothes. And I moste hertelye requyre the said Syr Thomas to be ffrendlye unto Foke Gyllome and William Shakshafte now dwellynge with me and ether to take theym unto his servyce or els to helpe theym to some good master'. Was then William Shakshafte a player in 1581?

[856] S. P. D. Eliz. clx. 48; clxiii. 44, record a dispute in 1583 between Sir Walter Waller and Mr. Potter, a J.P. of Kent. Waller, summoned before the Council, denies that his servants played an interlude at Brasted, and is confirmed by the constable and parishioners, who assert that Mr. Potter factiously sent the men to gaol as rogues. Lord Cobham made a vain attempt to reconcile the parties.

[857] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 259, on the history of this privilege. The reservation was continued by 39 Eliz. c. 4, § 10 (1598). By 43 Eliz. c. 9, § 2 (1601), it was made dependent on a certificate by the Lords Justices to the validity of Dutton's claim. Presumably this was obtained as the privilege was reserved unconditionally by 1 Jac. I, c. 7, § 8 (1604). There were several Elizabethan actors of the name of Dutton (cf. ch. xv), but it is not known whether they belonged to the Cheshire house.