not only when there was a royal guest to be entertained. As the public theatres were open by daylight, the companies were easily available for private engagements after supper. Naturally the record of such occasions has in most cases perished with the domestic account-books in which it was entered. But Sir Edward Hoby invited Sir Robert Cecil to a performance of Richard II—at least, I think so—in 1595.[1] The gossip of Rowland Whyte informs us of the banquets and plays given in honour of Sir Robert Cecil by Sir Walter Raleigh and other friends on the eve of his mission to France in 1598, of the two plays at a supper about the same date by Sir Gilly Meyrick at the rival political headquarters of Essex House, and of the performances of Henry IV under its original title of Sir John Oldcastle, when Lord Chamberlain Hunsdon feasted the Flemish ambassador Louis Verreyken in 1600.[2] Similarly, in 1606 John Chamberlain went to a play at Sir Walter Cope's, now Holland House, and 'had to squire his daughter about, till he was weary', and in 1613 Sir Robert Rich had a play for the delectation of the Savoyard ambassador after a supper in Holborn.[3] An amusing side-light on the improvised stage-arrangements necessary in private houses is given by a stage-direction in Percy's Aphrodysial, 'Here went furth the whole Chorus in a shuffle as after a Play in a Lord's howse'.[4] Wealthy citizens, if they were not too puritanically disposed, could well afford to follow the lead of the nobles and gentry of the court. And in the years before the controversy between
- ↑ Cf. ch. xiii (Chamberlain's).
- ↑ Sydney Papers, ii. 86 (30 Jan. 1598), 'My Lord Compton, my Lord Cobham, Sir Walter Rawley, my Lord Southampton, doe severally feast Mr. Secretary before he depart, and have plaies and banquets. My Lady Darby, my Lady Walsingham, Mrs. Anne Russell, are of the company, and my Lady Rawley'; ii. 90 (15 Feb. 1598), 'Sir Gilley Meiricke made at Essex House yesternight a very great supper. There were at yt, my Ladys Lester, Northumberland, Bedford, Essex, Rich; and my Lordes of Essex, Rutland, Monjoy, and others. They had 2 plaies, which kept them up till 1 a clocke after midnight'; ii. 175 (8 March 1600), 'All this Weeke the Lords haue bene in London, and past away the Tyme in Feasting and Plaies; for Vereiken dined vpon Wednesday, with my Lord Treasurer, who made hym a Roiall Dinner; vpon Thursday my Lord Chamberlain feasted hym, and made hym very great, and a delicate Dinner, and there in the After Noone his Plaiers acted, before Vereiken, Sir John Old Castell, to his Great Contentment'. It seems that, for their patron, the Chamberlain's men would give up an afternoon.
- ↑ S. P. D. Jac. I, xix. 12 (1606); Birch, i. 243; Winwood, iii. 461. A gallant might also have his private play at night in a tavern; cf. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe (1599, Works, iii. 148), 'To London againe he will, to reuell it, and haue two playes in one night, inuite all the Poets and Musitions to his chamber the next morning'; A Mad World, my Masters, v. i. 78, 'a right Mitre supper;—a play and all'.
- ↑ Aphrodysial, v. 5, cited by Reynolds, Percy, 258.
