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towards the stage far more pronounced than was indicated by the regulations of 1574. Under the stimulus of further pamphlets, Gosson's Playes Confuted in 1582 and Stubbes's Anatomy of Abuses in 1583, this tendency continued to grow, and finally landed the Corporation in a state of acute conflict with the Council. The earliest letter preserved is from the Lord Mayor to the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Bromley, on 12 April 1580. In this he took occasion, on the strength of a recent disturbance at the Theatre, of the admonition of the hand of God in the earthquake, and of a charge from the Council to avoid uncleanness and pestering of the city, to point out that players were 'a very superfluous sort of men and of such facultie as the lawes have disalowed', and to suggest the desirability of an order by which they should be 'wholy stayed and forbidden', both within and without the liberties. The disturbance at the Theatre was probably a fray between the Inns of Court and Oxford's men, which led to the imprisonment of some of the latter by the Council. Some months before John Brayne and James Burbage had been indicted for bringing about a breach of the peace by causing unlawful assemblies. There was not in fact much plague this summer, but the Council assented to a temporary inhibition until Michaelmas and called upon the Middlesex and Surrey Justices to extend it to Newington Butts and other places in their jurisdictions. Perhaps emboldened by his success, the Lord Mayor wrote a second letter on 17 June to Lord Burghley, in which he expressed the opinion that the haunting of unchaste plays in the suburbs was a serious danger to the City, and again proposed their restraint as part of a series of measures in the interests of the public health. Burghley's answer is not upon record. Presumably plays went on as usual during the winter of 1580. An incident of the following year makes it apparent that, at some uncertain but probably recent date, the Corporation had attempted to render the code of 1574 more stringent by forbidding performances upon Sundays. Lord Berkeley's men, who claimed to be ignorant of this, performed upon Sunday, 9 July 1581, and became involved in a fray with some Inns of Court men, which led to the committal of both parties to the Counter. On the very next day the Privy Council wrote to London and to Middlesex, and directed an inhibition of plays on the ground of plague until Michaelmas. The City responded by a suspension for an indefinite period on 13 July. They seem to have taken advantage of this to press their point about Sundays. On 14 November the Mayor issued a precept against the setting up of bills for plays within the