than that of a play-house.[1] Cuthbert continued the negotiations after James Burbadge's death in February 1597, but they finally broke down, and for a year or so the tenancy was only on sufferance.[2] Finally, in the autumn of 1598, when Cuthbert had agreed to demands which he thought extortionate, Allen refused to accept his brother Richard as security, and all hope of a settlement disappeared.[3] Cuthbert now resolved to avail himself of the covenant of the expired lease, under which the tenant was entitled to pull down and remove the Theatre. This he began to do, in spite of a protest from Allen's representative, on 28 December 1598, with the concurrence of his mother and brother, and the financial aid of one William Smith of Waltham Cross.[4] The work was still in progress on 20 January 1599, when Burbadge's agent, Peter Street, carpenter, entered the close with ten or twelve men, and carried the timber to the other side of the river for use in the erection of the Globe. For this act Allen brought an action of trespass against Street in the Queen's Bench, alleging that he had trampled down grass in the close to the value of 40s., and claiming damages for £800 in all, of which £700 represented his estimate of the value of the Theatre.[5] Burbadge applied to the Court of Requests to stop the common law suit, alleging in effect that he was equitably entitled to act upon the covenant, even though the lease had expired, on account of the unreasonable refusal of Allen to grant the new lease when applied for, under the terms of the old one, in 1585.[6] The issue really turned upon whether this refusal was reasonable. Allen said that James Burbadge had been a troublesome tenant, that he had converted the barn into eleven tenements, whose inhabitants became a nuisance to the parish by begging for their 20s. rents, that he had not repaired the building but only shored it up, that he had not spent the stipulated £200, and that £30 rent was in
- ↑ Wallace, 195, 203, 212, 216, 220, 238. Robert Miles took occasion of the negotiations to renew his old claim by petitioning in the Court of Requests for an interest in the new lease. The proceedings, so far as preserved, are inconclusive (ibid. 158). Meanwhile Cuthbert Burbadge was co-operating with Giles Allen in defending a claim made by the Earl of Rutland to the 'debateable' ground, and remained a party to the consequent litigation in 1602, long after the Theatre had disappeared (Stopes, 184).
- ↑ Wallace, 184, 196, 204.
- ↑ Ibid. 221.
- ↑ Ibid. 164, 179, 197, 217, 222, 238, 278. The dates are not quite certain; possibly the 20 Jan. of Allen v. Street was an error. Allen's Answer in the Court of Requests places the whole transaction 'aboute the feast of the Natiuitie', and this in his Star Chamber suit becomes 'aboute the eight and twentyth day of December', without any suggestion that more than one day was occupied.
- ↑ Ibid. 163.
- ↑ Ibid. 181.
