a consenting party, for it was he who, after the King's inhibition had brought the profits to an end, grew weary of the undertaking and initiated measures for winding it up. On or about 26 July 1608 he had had the 'apparells, properties and goods' of the syndicate appraised and an equitable division made. When some of the boys were committed to prison he had 'said he would deale no more with yt, "for", quoth he, "yt is a base thing", or vsed wordes to such, or very like effect'. And he had 'delivered up their commission, which he had vnder the greate seale aucthorising them to plaie, and discharged divers of the partners and poetts'. In view of this, Evans claimed that he was fully justified in coming to terms with Burbadge.[1]
After all, the King's anger proved only a flash in the pan. Perhaps the company travelled during the summer of 1608, if they, and not the King's Revels, were 'the Children of the Revells' rewarded at Leicester on 21 August.[2] But by the following Christmas they were in London, and with Keysar as their payee gave three plays at Court, where they had not put in an appearance since 1604-5. Two of these were on 1 and 4 January 1609. As they still bore the name of Children of Blackfriars, they had presumably remained on sufferance in their old theatre, which the King's men may not have been in a hurry to occupy during a plague-stricken period.[3] But when a new season opened in the autumn of 1609, new quarters became necessary. These they found at Whitefriars, which had been vacated by the failure of the short-lived King's Revels company, and it was as the Children of Whitefriars that Keysar brought them to Court for no less than five plays during the winter of 1609-10. He had now enlisted a partner in Philip Rosseter, one of the lutenists of the royal household, who carried out a scheme, with the co-operation of the King's men, for buying off with a 'dead rent' the possible competition of the Paul's boys, who had closed their doors about 1606, but might at any moment openacts and doings thereabout'. Unless Kirkham was more directly concerned in the management during 1608 than appears probable, Evans must be reflecting upon the whole series of misdemeanours since 1604.]
- ↑ E. v. K. 221; K. v. P. 245. In the earlier suit Evans says that the royal prohibition was 'vpon some misdemeanors committed in or about the plaies there, and specially vpon the defendants [Kirkham's
- ↑ On 9 May John Browne, 'one of the playe boyes', was buried at St. Anne's.
- ↑ K. v. B. 347, gives the date of surrender in 1610 as 'about the tenth of August last past'. Probably a year's sub-tenancy under the King's men explains the discrepancy with the 'about August in the sixt year of his Majesties raigne' of K. v. P. 235, and the confirmatory date of the King's men's leases.
