our
English stage-plays this nation ever produced; which the
poets and actors of these times cannot (without ingratitude)
deny; for I have heard the chief and most ingenious
acknowledge their fames and profits essentially sprung from
your instruction, judgment, and fancy.

[Footnote 607: He is referred to as their Governor on August 10, 1639;
see Malone, _Variorum_, III, 159.]

But in spite of all this, William Beeston's career as Governor was of
short duration. About the first of May, 1640, he allowed the Boys to
act without license a play that gave great offense to the King.
Herbert, the Master of the Revels, writes of this play that it "had
relation to the passages of the King's journey into the north, and was
complained of by His Majesty to me, with command to punish the
offenders."[608] In the Office-Book of the Lord Chamberlain, under the
date of May 3, 1640, we read:

Whereas William Beeston and the company of the players of
the Cockpit, in Drury Lane, have lately acted a new play
without any license from the Master of His Majesty's Revels,
and being commanded to forbear playing or acting of the same
play by the said Master of the Revels, and commanded
likewise to forbear all manner of playing, have
notwithstanding, in contempt of the authority of the said
Master of the Revels, and the power granted unto him under
the Great Seal of England, acted the said play, and others,
to the prejudice of His Majesty's service, and in contempt
of the Office of the Revels, [whereby] he and they and all
other companies ever have been and ought to be governed and
regulated: These are therefore in His Majesty's name, and
signification of his royal pleasure, to command the said
William Beeston and the rest of that company of the Cockpit
players from henceforth and upon sight hereof, to forbear to
act any plays whatsoever until they shall be restored by the
said Master of the Revels unto their former liberty. Whereof
all parties concernable are to take notice, and conform
accordingly, as they and every one of them will answer it at
their peril.[609]

[Footnote 608: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 241.]

[Footnote 609: Collier, _The History of English Dramatic Poetry_
(1879), II, 32; Stopes, _op. cit._, p. 102.]

Herbert records in his Office-Book:

On Monday the 4 May, 1640, William Beeston was