person who had known him for many years, deposed in 1592 that "James Burbage was not at the time of the first beginning of the building of the premises worth above one hundred marks[44] in all his substance, for he and this deponent were familiarly acquainted long before that time and ever since."[45] We are not surprised to learn, therefore, that he was "constrained to borrow diverse sums of money," and that he actually pawned the lease itself to a money-lender.[46] Even so, without assistance, we are told, he "should never be able to build it, for it would cost five times as much as he was worth."
Fortunately he had a wealthy brother-in-law, John Brayne,[47] a London grocer, described as "worth five hundred pounds at the least, and by common fame worth a thousand marks."[48] In some way Brayne became interested in the new venture. Like Burbage, he believed that large profits would flow from such a novel undertaking; and as a result he readily agreed to share the expense of erecting and maintaining the building. Years later members of the Brayne faction asserted that James Burbage "induced" his brother-in-law to venture upon the enterprise by unfairly representing the great profits to ensue;[49] but the evidence, I think, shows that Brayne eagerly sought the partnership. Burbage himself asserted in 1588 that Brayne "practiced to obtain some interest therein," and presumed "that he might easily compass the same by reason that he was natural brother"; and that he voluntarily offered to "bear and pay half the charges of the said building then bestowed and thereafter to be bestowed" in order "that he might have the moiety[50] of the above named Theatre."[51] As a further inducement, so the Burbages asserted, he promised that "for that he had no children," the moiety at his death should go to the children of James Burbage, "whose advancement he then seemed greatly to tender."
Whatever caused Brayne to interest himself in the venture, he quickly became fired with such hopes of great gain that he not only spent upon the building all the money he could gather or borrow, but sold his stock of groceries for £146, disposed of his house for £100, even pawned his clothes, and put his all into the new structure. The spirit in which he worked to make the venture a success, and the personal sacrifices that he and his wife made, fully deserve the quotation here of two legal depositions bearing on the subject:
This deponent, being servant, in Bucklersbury, aforesaid, to one Robert Kenningham, grocer, in which street the said John Brayne dwelled also, and of the same trade, he, the said Brayne, at the time he joined with the said James Burbage in the aforesaid lease, was reputed among his neighbors to be worth one thousand pounds at the least, and that after he had joined with the said Burbage in the matter of the building of the said Theatre, he began to slack his own trade, and gave himself to the building thereof, and the chief care thereof he took upon him, and hired workmen of all sorts for that purpose, bought timber and all other things belonging thereunto, and paid all. So as, in this deponent's conscience, he bestowed thereupon for his owne part the sum of one thousand marks at the least, in so much as his affection was given so greatly to the finishing thereof, in hope of great wealth and profit during their lease, that at the last he was driven to sell to this deponent's father his lease of the house wherein he dwelled for £100, and to this deponent all such wares as he had left and all that belonged thereunto remaining in the same, for the sum of £146 and odd money, whereof this deponent did pay for him to one Kymbre, an ironmonger in London, for iron work which the said Brayne bestowed upon the said Theatre, the sum of £40. And afterwards the said Brayne took the matter of the said building so upon him as he was driven to borrow money to supply the same, saying to this deponent that his brother Burbage was not able to help the same, and that he found not towards it above the value of fifty pounds, some part in mony and the rest in stuff.[52]
In reading the next deposition, one should bear in mind the fact that the deponent, Robert Myles, was closely identified with the Brayne faction, and was, therefore, a bitter enemy to the Burbages. Yet his testimony, though prejudiced, gives us a vivid picture of Brayne's activity in the building of the Theatre:
So the said John Brayne made a great sum of money of purpose and intent to go to the building of the said playhouse, and thereupon did provide timber and other stuff needful for the building thereof, and hired carpenters and plasterers for the same purpose, and paid the workmen continually. So as he for his part laid out of his own purse and what upon credit about the same to the sum of £600 or £700 at the least. And in the same time, seeing the said James Burbage nothing able either of himself or by his credit to contribute any like sum towards the building thereof, being then to be finished or else to be lost that had been bestowed upon it already, the said Brayne was driven to sell his house he dwelled in in Bucklersbury, and all his stock that was left, and give up his trade, yea in the end to pawn and sell both his own garments and his wife's, and to run in debt to many for money, to finish the said playhouse, and so to employ himself only upon that matter, and all whatsoever he could make, to his utter undoing, for he saieth that in the latter end of the finishing thereof, the said Brayne and his wife, the now complainants, were driven to labor in the said work for saving of some of the charge in place of two laborers, whereas the said James Burbage went about his own business, and at sometimes when he did take upon him to do some thing in the said work, he would be and was allowed a workman's hire as other the workman there had.[53]
The last fling at Burbage is quite gratuitous; yet it is probably true that the main costs of erecting the playhouse fell upon the shoulders of Brayne. The evidence is contradictory; some persons assert that Burbage paid half the cost of the building,[54] others that Brayne paid nearly all,[55] and still others content themselves with saying that Brayne paid considerably more than half. The last statement may be accepted as true. The assertion of Gyles Alleyn in 1601, that the Theatre was "erected at the costs and charges of one Brayne and not of the said James Burbage, to the value of one thousand marks,"[56] is doubtless incorrect; more correct is the assertion of Robert Myles, executor of the Widow Brayne's will, in 1597: "The said John Brayne did join with the said James [Burbage] in the building aforesaid, and did expend thereupon greater sums than the said James, that is to say, at least five or six hundred pounds."[57] Since there is evidence that the playhouse ultimately cost about £700,[58] we might hazard the guess that of this sum Brayne furnished about £500,[59] and Burbage about £200. To equalize the expenditure it was later agreed that "the said Brayne should take and receive all the rents and profits of the said Theatre to his own use until he should be answered such sums of money which he had laid out for and upon the same Theatre more than the said Burbage had done."[60]
But if Burbage at the outset was "nothing able to contribute any" great sum of ready money towards the building of the first playhouse, he did contribute other things equally if not more important. In the first place, he conceived the idea, and he carried it as far towards realization as his means allowed. In the second place, he planned the building—its stage as well as its auditorium—to meet the special demands of the actors and the comfort of the audience. This called for bold originality and for ingenuity of a high order, for, it must be remembered, he had no model to study—he was designing the first structure of its kind in England.[61] For this task he was well prepared. In the first place, he was an actor of experience; in the second place, he was the manager of one of the most important troupes in England; and, in the third place, he was by training and early practice a carpenter and builder. In other words, he had exact knowledge of what was needed, and the practical skill to meet those needs.
The building that he designed and erected he named—as by virtue of priority he had a right to do—"The Theatre."
Of the Theatre, unfortunately, we have no pictorial representation, and no formal description, so that our knowledge of its size, shape, and general arrangement must be derived from scattered and miscellaneous sources. That the building was large we may feel sure; the cost of its erection indicates as much. The Fortune, one of the largest and handsomest of the later playhouses, cost only £520, and the Hope, also very large, cost £360. The Theatre, therefore, built at a cost of £700, could not have been small. It is commonly referred to, even so late as 1601, as "the great house called the Theatre," and the author of Skialetheia (1598) applied to it the significant adjective "vast." Burbage, no doubt, had learned from his experience as manager of a troupe the pecuniary advantage of having an auditorium large enough to receive all who might come.
