338
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discretion on Sunday[1] or at night,[2] or in Lent,[3] or during divine service,[4] and laying down for each company the number of days during which it was at liberty to perform, or the interval which must elapse between one visit and the next. At Norwich the number of days ranged from one to eight, sometimes one performance and sometimes two being allowed on each day. The royal signet warrants which came into use about 1616 authorized the companies holding them to stay fourteen days in any one town. Sometimes Dogberry and Verges found good reason for refusing leave to play. It was a season of plague or of social disturbance in the town.[5] In
- ↑ 'There shall not any playes . . . be played . . . on any Sabaothe dayes nor aboue twoe daies together at any tyme. And no players . . . to be suffered to playe againe . . . within twentie and eighte daies nexte after such tyme as they shall haue laste played. . . . And they shall not exceede the hower of nyne of the clocke in the nighte' (Canterbury, Burghmote Book, 1595); 'This day lycens ys graunted to the L. of Huntington his players to playe one daye & not vppon the Saboath daye' (Norwich, 1597); 'The Quenes players had leave guiven them to play for one weeke so that they play neither on the Saboth day nor in the night nor more then one play a day' (Norwich, 1611).
- ↑ 'Not . . . after nyne of the clocke' (Norwich, 1599); cf. Canterbury, above. A Chester order of 1615 fixed 6 p.m. and a Salisbury order of 1623 7 p.m. as the limit; an Exeter order of 1609 (H. M. C. Exeter MSS. 321) allowed 6 p.m. between Annunciation and Michaelmas and 5 p.m. between Michaelmas and Annunciation.
- ↑ Lord Coke, as Recorder of Coventry, wrote to the Corporation on 28 March 1615 (Murray, ii. 254): 'Forasmuch as this time is by his Maiesties lawes and iniunctions consecrated to the service of Almighty God, and publique notice was given on the last Sabaoth for preparacion to the receyving of the holy communion. Theis are to will and require you to suffer no common players whatsoever to play within your Citie for that it would tend to the hinderance of devotion, and drawing of the artificers and common people from their labour. And this being signified vnto any such they will rest therewith (as becometh them) satisfied, otherwise suffer you them not and this shall be your sufficient warrant.' The letter is endorsed 'The Lord Coke his lettre concerning the La: Eliza: Players'. The Earl of Cumberland would not let Lord Vaux's men play in 1609 'because it was Lent & therefor not fitting' (Murray, ii. 255).
- ↑ Murray, ii. 234 (Chester, 1595). The Privy Council warrant for the provincial tour of Strange's men in 1593 expressly excludes plays in service time.
- ↑ 'The tyme was busy, they dyd not play' (Bristol, 1541); 'for that they should not playe here by reason that the sicknes was then in this Cytye' (Canterbury, 1608); 'for that the tyme was not conveynyent' (Leicester, 1584); 'to avoyd the meetynge of people this whote whether for fear of any infeccon as also for that they came fro an infected place' (Norwich, 1583). On 6 May 1597 the Privy Council wrote to the Suffolk justices to prohibit stage plays during the Whitsun holidays at Hadleigh (App. D, No. cviii), 'doubting what inconveniences may follow thereon, especially at this tyme of scarcety, when disordred people of the comon sort wilbe apt to misdemeane themselves'. There had been tumults in Norfolk during April, owing to the scarcity of grain (Dasent, xxvii. 88). The
