blic.

[Footnote 3: See especially _The Acts of the Privy Council_ and _The
Remembrancia_ of the City of London.]

Richard Reulidge, in _A Monster Lately Found Out and Discovered_
(1628), writes that "soon after 1580" the authorities of London
received permission from Queen Elizabeth and her Privy Council "to
thrust the players out of the city, and to pull down all playhouses
and dicing-houses within their liberties: which accordingly was
effected; and the playhouses in Gracious Street [i.e., the Bell and
the Cross Keys], Bishopsgate Street [i.e., the Bull], that nigh Paul's
[i.e., Paul's singing school?], that on Ludgate Hill [i.e., the Bell
Savage], and the Whitefriars[4] were quite put down and suppressed by
the care of these religious senators."

[Footnote 4: There is some error here. The city had no jurisdiction
over Whitefriars, or Blackfriars either; but there was a playhouse in
Blackfriars at the time, and it was suppressed in 1584, though not by
the city authorities. Possibly Reulidge should have written
"Whitechapel."]

[Illustration: MAP OF LONDON SHOWING THE INN-PLAYHOUSES

1. The Bell Savage; 2. The Cross Keys; 3. The Bell; 4. The Bull; 5.
The Boar's Head.]

Yet, in spite of what Reulidge says, these five inns continued to be
used by the players for many years.[5] No doubt they were often used
surreptitiously. In _Martin's Month's Mind_ (1589), we read that a
person "for a penie may have farre better [entertainment] by oddes at
the Theatre and Curtaine, and _any blind playing house_ everie
day."[6] But the more important troupes were commonly able, through
the interference of the Privy Council, to get official permission to
use the inns during a large part of each year.

[Footnote 5: _The Remembrancia_ shows that the inn-playhouses remained
for many years as sharp thorns in the side of the puritanical city
fathers.]

[Footnote 6: Grosart, _Nash_, I, 179.]

There is not enough material about these early inn-playhouses to
enable one to write their separate histories. Below, however, I have
recorded in chronological order the more important references to them
which have come under my observation.

1557. On September 5 the Privy Council instructed the Lord Mayor of
London "that some of his officers do forthwith repair to the Boar's
Head without Aldgate, where, the Lords are informed, a lewd play
called _A Sackful of News_ shall be played this day," to arrest the
players, and send their playbook to