provision, the importance of which in connexion with players has been overlooked, safeguarded the validity, as overriding the statute, of licences passed under the Great Seal of England. It is in 1572 also that symptoms of a conflict of judgement between the City and the Privy Council first declare themselves. The annalist Harrison records that in this year plays were 'banished' out of London for fear of infection, and on 20 May a minute of the Court of Aldermen records that letters had been received from the Council for renewed allowance under reasonable conditions, and that, in place of immediate compliance, a letter of protest, based on the peril of assemblies during a hot summer, was to be sent to Lord Burghley. A somewhat similar situation seems to have developed in 1573, which made it necessary in July for the Council to write two letters to the Corporation, of which the second had a peremptory note about it, in order to obtain permission for some Italian players to exhibit an 'instrument of strange motions', or puppet-show. The following year was evidently one of considerable friction. On 2 March the Corporation wrote to the Lord Chamberlain with reference to a suggestion that the licensing of playing-places within the City should be put in the hands of one Holmes. They maintained their earlier refusal, already mentioned, to commit such a matter to any private person, and added that they had other offers for the licensing rights on terms that would be profitable 'to the relefe of the poore in the hospitalles'. The terms of the letter make it clear that they regarded the plan as one which, besides being practically inconvenient, would entail a precedent 'farre extending to the hart of our liberties'. In the meantime plays were apparently inhibited, for on 22 March the Council wrote to inquire the causes of the restraint, 'to thintent their Lordships may the better aunswer suche as desyre to have libertye for the same'. It may be conjectured that the reply was unsatisfactory, for in May a remedy for which provision had been made by anticipation in the Vagabond Act of 1572 was resorted to, and a patent under the Great Seal was issued to the Earl of Leicester's men, which over-ruled the proclamation of 1559 and ignored the position of the Corporation altogether. By this the company received permission to play during the royal pleasure either within
(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.
