away their coaches, and
to disperse abroad in Paul's Churchyard, Carter Lane, the Conduit in
Fleet Street, and other places, and not to return to fetch their
company, but they must trot afoot to find their coaches. 'Twas kept
very strictly for two or three weeks, but now I think it is disordered
again."[374] The truth is that certain distinguished patrons of the
theatre did not care "to trot afoot to find their coaches," and so
made complaint at Court. As a result it was ordered, at a sitting of
the Council, December 29, 1633 (the King being present): "Upon
information this day given to the Board of the discommodity that
diverse persons of great quality, especially Ladies and Gentlewomen,
did receive in going to the playhouse of Blackfriars by reason that no
coaches may stand ... the Board ... think fit to explain the said
order in such manner that as many coaches as may stand within the
Blackfriars Gate may enter and stay there."[375]

[Footnote 372: The _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1633_, p. 293.
The report of the commissioners in full, as printed by Collier in _New
Facts_ (1835), p. 27, and again in _History of English Dramatic
Poetry_ (1879), I, 477, is not above suspicion, although Mr. E.K.
Chambers is inclined to think it genuine. According to this document
the actors estimated the property to be worth L21,990, but the
committee thought that the actors might be persuaded to accept L2900
13_s._ 4_d._]

[Footnote 373: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 99; 387.]

[Footnote 374: _The Earl of Strafforde's Letters_ (Dublin, 1740), I,
175.]

[Footnote 375: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 388.]

All this agitation about coaches implies a fashionable and wealthy
patronage of the Blackfriars. An interesting glimpse of high society
at the theatre is given in a letter written by Garrard, January 25,
1636: "A little pique happened betwixt the Duke of Lenox and the Lord
Chamberlain about a box at a new play in the Blackfriars, of which the
Duke had got the key, which, if it had come to be debated betwixt
them, as it was once intended, some heat or perhaps other
inconvenience might have happened."[376] The Queen herself also
sometimes went thither. Herbert records, without any comment, her
presence there on the 13 of May, 1634.[377] It has been generally
assumed that she attended a regular afternoon performance; but this, I
am sure, was not the case. The Queen engaged the entire building for
the priva