fauorable regard and expedition. And so I comitt your Lp. to the grace of God. From the Courte at St. Iames the first of December 1583.
Your Lps. very assured louing frende,
Fra: Walsingham.
To my very good Lord the Lord maiour of the Citie of London.
lxxiv.
[1584, June 18. Extracts from letter of William Fleetwood to Lord
Burghley, printed M. S. C. i. 163, from Lansd. MS. 41, f. 31; also in
Wright, ii. 226.]
Right honorable and my very good Lo. Vpon Whit Sondaye there
was a very good Sermond preached at the New churche yard nere
bethelem, wherat my Lo. Maiour was with his bretherne, and by
reason no playes were the same daye all the citie was quiet. . . .
Vpon Mondaye night I retorned to London and found all the wardes full of watchers. The cause thereof was for that very nere the Theatre or Curten at the tyme of the Playes there laye a prentice sleping vpon the Grasse, and one Challes al. Grostock dyd turne vpon the Too vpon the belly of the same prentice, whervpon the apprentice start vp and after wordes they fell to playne bloues; the companie encressed of bothe sides to the nosmber of v^c at the least. This Challes exclaimed and said that he was a gentelman and that the apprentise was but a Rascall; and some there were litell better then rooges that tooke vpon theym the name of gentilmen and said the prentizes were but the skomme of the worlde. Vpon these trobles the prentizes began the next daye, being Twesdaye, to make mutines and assembles, and dyd conspire to have broken the presones & to have taken furthe the prentizes that were imprisoned; but my Lo. and I having intelligens thereof apprensed .iiij. or .v. of the chieff conspirators, who are in Newgate and stand Indicted of theire lewd demeanors.
Vpon Weddensdaye one Browne, a serving man in a blew coat, a shifting fellowe having a perrelous witt of his owne, entending a spoile if he cold have browght it to passe, did at Theatre doore querell with certen poore boyes, handicraft prentises, and strook some of theym, and lastlie he with his sword wondend and maymed one of the boyes vpon the left hand; where vpon there assembled nere a ml. people. This Browne dyd very cuninglie convey hym selff awaye, but by chaunse he was taken after and browght to mr. Humfrey Smithe, and because no man was able to charge hym he dismissed hym, and after this Browne was browght before mr. Yonge, where he vsed hym selff so connynglie and subtillie, no man being there to charge hym, that there also he was demised. And after I sent a warraunt for hym, and the Constables with the deputie at the Bell in Holbourne found hym in a parlor fast locked in, and he wold not obeye the warraunt, but by the meane of the hoost he was conveyed a waye, and then I sent for the hoost and caused hym to appere at Newgat
