he manager,
Kirkham, had presented the play without securing the Lord
Chamberlain's allowance. As a result, he and the others in charge of
the Children were prohibited from any further connection with the
playhouse. This doubtless explains the fact that Kirkham shortly after
appears as one of the managers of Paul's Boys.[343] It explains, also,
the following statement made by Evans in the course of one of the
later legal documents: "After the King's most excellent Majesty, upon
some misdemeanors committed in or about the plays there, _and
specially upon the defendant's_ [Kirkham's] _acts and doings there_,
had prohibited that no plays should be more used there," etc.[344] Not
only was Kirkham driven from the management of the troupe and the
playhouse closed for a time, but the Children were denied the Queen's
patronage. No longer were they allowed to use the high-sounding title
"The Children of the Queen's Majesty's Revels"; instead, we find them
described merely as "The Children of the Revels," or as "The Children
of Blackfriars."[345]

[Footnote 342: See Dobell, "Newly Discovered Documents," in _The
Athenaeum_, March 30, 1901.]

[Footnote 343: Cunningham, _Revels_, p. xxxviii.]

[Footnote 344: Fleay, _op. cit._, p. 221.]

[Footnote 345: Except carelessly, as when sometimes called "The
Children of the Chapel."]

For a time, no doubt, affairs at the playhouse were at a standstill.
Evans again sought to surrender his lease to Burbage, but without
success.[346] Marston, having escaped the wrath of the King by flight,
decided to end his career as a playwright and turn country parson. It
was shortly after this, in all probability, that he sold his share in
the Blackfriars organization to one Robert Keysar, a goldsmith of
London, for the sum of L100.[347]

[Footnote 346: Wallace, _Shakespeare and his London Associates_, p.
82.]

[Footnote 347: _Ibid._, pp. 81, 86, 89, 93.]

Keysar, it seems, undertook to reopen the playhouse, and to continue
the Children there at his own expense.[348] From the proprietors he
rented the playhouse, the stock of apparel, the furnishings, and
playbooks. This, I take it, explains the puzzling statement made by
Kirkham some years later:

This repliant [Kirkham] and his said partners [Rastell and
Kendall] have had and received the sum of one hundred pounds
per annum for their part and moiety in the premises without
any manner of charges whatsoever [i.e., during Kirk