I think, be assumed that Heminges and Condell had together purchased the share left by Sly to his son Robert.
The acquisition of the Blackfriars by the King's men in 1608 did not, at first at least, detract from the importance of the Globe as the leading London theatre. It is so accepted by foreign visitors in 1610 and again in 1611.[1]
On 29 June 1613 the house was 'casually burnt downe and consumed with fier'.[2] The event was important enough to find a record in Howes' continuation of Stowe's Annales:[3]
'Upon S. Peters day last, the play-house or Theater, called the
Globe, upon the Banck-side near London, by negligent discharging of
a peal of ordinance, close to the south-side thereof, the thatch took fire,
and the wind sodainly disperst the flame round about, and in a very
short space the whole building was quite consumed, and no man hurt;
the house being filled with people to behold the play, viz. of Henry the
Eighth. And the next spring it was new builded in far fairer manner
than before.'
Many other contemporary accounts exist. Thus Thomas
Lorkin wrote to Sir Thomas Puckering on 30 June:[4]
'No longer since than yesterday, while Burbage's company were
acting at the Globe the play of Henry VIII, and there shooting off
certain chambers in way of triumph, the fire catched and fastened
upon the thatch of the house, and there burned so furiously, as it consumed
the whole house, all in less than two hours, the people having
enough to do to save themselves.'
On 2 July Sir Henry Wotton wrote to his nephew Sir Edmund
Bacon:[5]
'Now, to let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at the
present with what has happened this week at the Bank's side. The
King's players had a new play, called All is True, representing some
principal pieces of the reign of Henry VIII, which was set forth with
many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the
matting of the stage; the Knights of the Order with their Georges and
garters, the Guards with their embroidered coats, and the like: sufficient
in truth within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not
ridiculous. Now, King Henry making a masque at the Cardinal
Wolsey's house, and certain chambers being shot off at his entry, someS. E. [Prince Lewis Frederick of Württemberg]
alla au Globe, lieu ordinaire ou l'on joue les Commedies, y fut representé
l'histoire du More de Venise'; cf. p. 369 on visit of Prince of Hesse-Cassel
in 1611.]
