his father "did often in gentle manner solicit and require the said Gyles Alleyn for making a new lease of the said premises according to the purporte and effect of the said covenant." But invariably Alleyn found some excuse for delay.
The death of Brayne, in August, 1586, led John Hide, who by reason of the defaulted mortgage was legally the owner of the Theatre, to redouble his efforts to collect his debt. He "gave it out in speech that he had set over and assigned the said lease and bonds to one George Clough, his … father-in-law (but in truth he did not so)," and "the said Clough, his father-in-law, did go about to put the said defendant [Burbage] out of the Theatre, or at least did threaten to put him out." As we have seen, there was a clause in the mortgage which prevented Hide from ejecting Burbage;[76] yet Clough was able to make so much trouble, "divers and sundry times" visiting the Theatre, that at last Burbage undertook to settle the debt out of the profits of the playhouse. As Robert Myles deposed in 1592, Burbage allowed the widow of Brayne for "a certain time to take and receive the one-half of the profits of the galleries of the said Theatre … then on a sudden he would not suffer her to receive any more of the profits there, saying that he must take and receive all till he had paid the debts. And then she was constrained, as his servant, to gather the money and to deliver it unto him."[77]
For some reason, however, the debt was not settled, and Hide continued his futile demands. Several times Burbage offered to pay the sum in full if the title of the Theatre were made over to his son Cuthbert Burbage; and Brayne's widow made similar offers in an endeavor to gain the entire property for herself. But Hide, who seems to have been an honest man, always declared that since Burbage and Brayne "did jointly mortgage it unto him" he was honor-bound to assign the property back to Burbage and the widow of Brayne jointly. So matters stood for a while.
At last, however, in 1589, Hide declared that "since he had forborne his money so long, he could do it no more, so as they that came first should have it of him." Thereupon Cuthbert Burbage came bringing not only the money in hand, but also a letter from his master and patron, Walter Cape, gentleman usher to the Lord High Treasurer, requesting Hide to make over the Theatre to Cuthbert, and promising in return to assist Hide with the Lord Treasurer when occasion arose. Under this pressure, Hide accepted full payment of his mortgage, and made over the title of the property to Cuthbert Burbage. Thus Brayne's widow was legally excluded from any share in the ownership of the Theatre. Myles deposed, in 1592, that henceforth Burbage "would not suffer her to meddle in the premises, but thrust her out of all."
This led at once to a suit, in which Robert Myles acted for the widow. He received an order from the Court of Chancery in her favor, and armed with this, and accompanied by two other persons, he came on November 16, 1590, to Burbage's "dwelling house near the Theatre," called to the door Cuthbert Burbage, and in "rude and exclamable sort" demanded "the moiety of the said Theatre." James Burbage "being within the house, hearing a noise at the door, went to the door, and there found his son, the said Cuthbert, and the said Myles speaking loud together." Words were bandied, until finally Burbage, "dared by the same Myles with great threats and words that he would do this and could do that," lost his temper, and threatened to beat Myles off the ground.[78]
Next the widow, attended by Robert Myles and others, visited the home of the Burbages "to require them to perform the said award" of the court. They were met by James Burbage's wife, who "charged them to go out of her grounds, or else she would make her son break their knaves' heads." Aroused by this noise, "James Burbage, her husband, looking out a window upon them, called the complainant [Widow Brayne] murdering whore, and … the others villaines, rascals, and knaves." And when Mistress Brayne spoke of the order of the court, "he cryed unto her, 'Go, go. A cart, a cart for you! I will obey no such order, nor I care not for any such orders, and therefore it were best for you and your companions to be packing betimes, for if my son [Cuthbert] come he will thump you hence!'" Just then Cuthbert did "come home, and in very hot sort bid them get thence, or else he would set them forwards, saying 'I care for no such order. The Chancery shall not give away what I have paid for.'" And so, after "great and horrible oathes" by James Burbage and his son, the widow and her attendants "went their ways."[79]
Receiving thus no satisfaction from these visits to the home of James Burbage, the widow and Robert Myles came several times to the Theatre, bearing the order of the court in their hands; but each time they were railed upon and driven out. Finally, the widow, with her ever-faithful adjutant Robert Myles, his son Ralph, and his business partner, Nicholas Bishop, went "to the Theatre upon a play-day to stand at the door that goeth up to the galleries of the said Theatre to take and receive for the use of the said Margaret half of the money that should be given to come up into the said gallery." In the Theatre they were met by Richard Burbage, then about nineteen years old, and his mother, who "fell upon the said Robert Myles and beat him with a broom staff, calling him murdering knave." When Myles's partner, Bishop, ventured to protest at this contemptuous treatment of the order of the court, "the said Richard Burbage," so Bishop deposed, "scornfully and disdainfully playing with this deponent's nose, said that if he dealt in the matter, he would beat him also, and did challenge the field of him at that time." One of the actors then coming in, John Alleyn—brother of the immortal Edward Alleyn—"found the foresaid Richard Burbage, the youngest son of the said James Burbage, there with a broom staff in his hand; of whom when this deponent Alleyn asked what stir was there, he answered in laughing phrase how they came for a moiety, 'But,' quod he (holding up the said broom staff) 'I have, I think, delivered him a moiety with this, and sent them packing.'" Alleyn thereupon warned the Burbages that Myles could bring an action of assault and battery against them. "'Tush,' quod the father, 'no, I warrant you; but where my son hath now beat him hence, my sons, if they will be ruled by me, shall at their next coming provide charged pistols, with powder and hempseed, to shoot them in the legs.'"[80]
But if the Burbages could laugh at the efforts of Myles and the widow to secure a moiety of the Theatre from Cuthbert, they were seriously troubled by the continued refusal of Gyles Alleyn to renew the lease. James Burbage many times urged his landlord to fulfill the original agreement, but in vain. At last, Alleyn, "according to his own will and discretion, did cause a draft of a lease to be drawn, wherein were inserted many unreasonable covenants." The new conditions imposed by Alleyn were: (1) that Burbage should pay a rental of £24 instead of £14 a year; (2) that he should use the Theatre as a place for acting for only five years after the expiration of the original twenty-one-year lease, and should then convert the building to other uses; (3) that he should ultimately leave the building in the possession of Alleyn.[81] The first and third conditions, though unjust, Burbage was willing to accept, but the second condition—that he should cease to use the Theatre for plays—he "utterly refused" to consider.
Finally, perceiving that it was useless to deal further with Alleyn, he made plans to secure a new playhouse in the district of Blackfriars, a district which, although within the city walls, was not under the jurisdiction of the city authorities. He purchased there the old Blackfriars refectory for £600, and then at great expense made the refectory into a playhouse. But certain influential noblemen and others living near by protested against this, and the Privy Council ordered that the building should not be used as a public playhouse. All this belongs mainly to the history of the Second Blackfriars Playhouse, and for further details the reader is referred to the chapter dealing with that theatre.
Shortly after the order of the Privy Council cited above, Burbage died, just two months before the expiration of his lease from Alleyn; and the Theatre with all its troubles passed to his son Cuthbert. By every means in his power Cuthbert sought to induce Alleyn to renew the lease: "Your said subject was thereof possessed, and being so possessed, your said servant did often require the said Alleyn and Sara his wife to make unto him the said new lease of the premises, according to the agreement of the said indenture." Cuthbert's importunity in the matter is clearly set forth in a deposition by Henry Johnson, one of Alleyn's tenants. It was Alleyn's custom to come to London at each of the four pay terms of the year, and stop at the George Inn in Shoreditch to receive his rents; and on such occasions Johnson often observed Cuthbert's entreaties with Alleyn. In his deposition he says that
