; R.B. McKerrow, _The
Works of Thomas Nashe_, V, 29; and especially the important article by
Mr. Wallace in _Englische Studien_ already referred to.]

[Footnote 257: _Nashes Lenten Stuffe_ (1599), ed. McKerrow, III, 153.]

[Footnote 258: Dasent, _Acts of the Privy Council_, XXVII, 313.
Possibly the other public playhouses were suppressed along with the
Swan in response to the petition presented to the Council on July 28,
(i.e. on the same day) by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen requesting the
"final suppressing of the said stage plays, as well at the Theatre,
Curtain, and Bankside as in all other places in and about the city."
See The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 78.]

The Council, however, did not stop with this. It ordered the arrest of
the authors of the play and also of the chief actors who took part in
its performance. Nashe saved himself by precipitate flight, but his
lodgings were searched and his private papers were turned over to the
authorities. Robert Shaw and Gabriel Spencer, as leaders of the
troupe, and Ben Jonson, as one of the "inferior players" who had a
part in writing the play,[259] were thrown into prison. The rest of
the company hurried into the country, their speed being indicated by
the fact that we find them acting in Bristol before the end of July.

[Footnote 259: In a marginal gloss to _Nashes Lenten Stuffe_ (1599),
ed. McKerrow, III, 154, Nashe says: "I having begun but the induction
and first act of it, the other four acts without my consent or the
best guess of my drift or scope, by the players were supplied, which
bred both their trouble and mine too."]

Some of these events are referred to in the following letter,
addressed by the Privy Council "to Richard Topclyfe, Thomas Fowler,
and Richard Skevington, esquires, Doctor Fletcher, and Mr.
Wilbraham":

Upon information given us of a lewd play that was played in
one of the playhouses on the Bankside, containing very
seditious and slanderous matter, we caused some of the
players [Robert Shaw, Gabriel Spencer, and Ben Jonson[260]]
to be apprehended and committed to prison, whereof one of
them [Ben Jonson] was not only an actor but a maker of part
of the said play. Forasmuch as it is thought meet that the
rest of the players or actors in that matter shall be
apprehended to receive such punishment as their lewd and
mutinous behaviour doth deserve, these shall be therefore to
requir