they were stopped by
soldiers. Thereafter, on special occasions "they used to bribe the
officer who commanded the guard at Whitehall, and were thereupon
connived at to act for a few days at the Red Bull, but were sometimes,
notwithstanding, disturbed by soldiers."[510] To such clandestine
performances Kirkman refers in his Preface to _The Wits, or Sport upon
Sport_ (1672): "I have seen the Red Bull Playhouse, which was a large
one, so full that as many went back for want of room as had entered;
and as meanly as you may now think of these drolls, they were then
acted by the best comedians then and now in being." Not, however,
without occasional trouble. In Whitelocke's _Memorials_, p. 435, we
read: "20 Dec., 1649. Some stage-players in St. John's Street were
apprehended by troopers, their clothes taken away, and themselves
carried to prison"; again, in _The Perfect Account_, December
27-January 3, 1654-1655: "Dec. 30, 1654.--This day the players at the
Red Bull, being gotten into all their borrowed gallantry and ready to
act, were by some of the soldiery despoiled of all their bravery; but
the soldiery carried themselves very civilly towards the
audience."[511] In the _Weekly Intelligencer_, September 11-18, 1655,
we find recorded still another sad experience for the actors: "Friday,
September 11, 1655.--This day proved tragicall to the players at the
Red Bull; their acting being against the Act of Parliament, the
soldiers secured the persons of some of them who were upon the stage,
and in the tiring-house they seized also upon their clothes in which
they acted, a great part whereof was very rich."[512]

[Footnote 509: Hazlitt's Dodsley, XV, 409.]

[Footnote 510: _Ibid._, 409-10.]

[Footnote 511: Cited by C.H. Firth, in _Notes and Queries_, August 18,
1888, series VII, vol. VI, p. 122.]

[Footnote 512: _Ibid._]

On this occasion, however, the soldiers, instead of carrying
themselves "very civilly" towards the audience, undertook to exact
from each of the spectators the fine of five shillings. The ordinance
of Parliament, passed February 9, 1648, read: "And it is hereby
further ordered and ordained, that every person or persons which shall
be present and a spectator at such stage-play or interlude, hereby
prohibited, shall for every time he shall be present, forfeit and pay
the sum of five shillings to the use of the poor of the parish."[513]
But the spectators did not submit to this fine without a struggle.
Jeremi