R. Willis, in a half-autobiographical, half-religious, treatise entitled Mount Tabor, published in 1639:[1]
'In the City of Gloucester, the manner is (as I think it is in other like corporations) that when Players of Enterludes come to towne, they first attend the Mayor, to enforme him what noble-mans servants they are, and so to get licence for their publike playing; and if the Mayor like the Actors, or would shew respect to their Lord and Master, he appoints them to play their first play before himselfe, and the Aldermen and common Counsell of the City; and that is called the Mayors play, where every one that will comes in without money, the Mayor giving the players a reward as hee thinks fit, to shew respect unto them. At such a play my father tooke me with him, and made me stand betweene his leggs, as he sate upon one of the benches, where wee saw and heard very well.'
The account given by Willis receives general confirmation from the numerous entries with regard to players exhumed from the municipal archives not only of Gloucester itself, but of many other towns, and notably Canterbury, Dover, Southampton, Winchester, Exeter, Plymouth, Barnstaple, Oxford, Abingdon, Marlborough, Bath, Bristol, Shrewsbury, Chester, York, Newcastle, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, Stratford-on-Avon, Maldon, Ipswich, Cambridge, and Norwich.[2] As a rule the information consists of a record in the annual accounts rendered by the Chamberlains or other borough treasurers of the 'rewards' paid to the companies for performing the 'Mayor's play'. These are often stated to have been paid at the 'appointment' of the Mayor, or of the Mayor and the Aldermen or other body who were his 'brethren'. The name of the company is generally given; sometimes the date of the performances, and more rarely the name of the play or some other detail which struck the fancy of the Chamberlains, is added. Sometimes, moreover, there is subsidiary expenditure to record; a stage has to be put up and lit;[3] damage done has to be repaired;[4] the players
- ↑ R. W., Mount Tabor, 110 (repr. Harrison, iv. 355), Upon a Stage-play which I saw when I was a child. The play was the morality of The Castle of Security; cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 189.
- ↑ Cf. Bibl. Note to ch. xii.
- ↑ 'For lynks to give light in the euenyng' (Bristol, 1577); 'for candells and torches then spent' (Canterbury, 1574); 'for the skafowld' (Exeter, 1604-5); 'to make a scaffolde in the Bothall' (Gloucester, 1559-60, with similar entries in other years up to 1568); 'a pounde of candelles' (Gloucester, 1561-2); 'for nayles . . . for layeing the tymber off ye stage together' (Maidstone, 1568-9); 'bordes that was borowed for to make a skaffold to the Halle' (Nottingham, 1572); 'for bearinge of bordes and other furniture' (Plymouth, 1580-1); 'for setting up stoopes for players' (Stafford, c. 1616).
- ↑ 'For amendynge the seelynge in the Guildhall that the Enterlude
