rtant
member of the Revels Office, and who for a time served as Master of
the Revels.

[Footnote 621: The playhouse discussed in this chapter was officially
known as "The Salisbury Court Playhouse," and it should always be
referred to by that name. Unfortunately, owing to its situation near
the district of Whitefriars, it was sometimes loosely, though
incorrectly, called "Whitefriars." Since it had no relation whatever
to the theatre formerly in the Manor-House of Whitefriars, a
perpetuation of this false nomenclature is highly undesirable.]

[Footnote 622: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 66.]

[Footnote 623: Chalmers's _Supplemental Apology_, pp. 216-17. He may
also have been the author of a play called _The Masque_, which Herbert
in 1624 licensed: "For the Palsgrave's Company, a new play called _The
Masque_." In the list of manuscript plays collected by Warburton we
find the title _A Mask_, and the authorship ascribed to R. Govell.
Since "R. Govell" is not otherwise heard of, we may reasonably suppose
that this was Warburton's reading of "R. Gunell." Gunnell also
prefixed a poem to the Works of Captain John Smith, 1626.]

[Footnote 624: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 66, 122, 176, 177.]

What threw these two men together in a theatrical partnership we do
not know. But in the summer of 1629 they decided to build a private
playhouse to compete with the successful Blackfriars and Cockpit; and
for this purpose they leased from the Earl of Dorset a plot of ground
situated to the east of the precinct of Whitefriars. The ground thus
leased opened on Salisbury Court; hence the name, "The Salisbury Court
Playhouse." In the words of the legal document, the Earl of Dorset "in
consideration that Richard Gunnell and William Blagrove should at
their costs and charges erect a playhouse and other buildings at the
lower end of Salisbury Court, in the parish of St. Bridges, in the
ward of Farringdon Without, did demise to the said Gunnell and
Blagrove a piece of ground at the same lower end of Salisbury Court,
containing one hundred and forty foot in length and forty-two in
breadth ... for forty-one years and a half." The lease was signed on
July 6, 1629. Nine days later, on July 15, the Earl of Dorset, "in
consideration of nine hundred and fifty pounds paid to the said late
Earl by John Herne, of Lincoln's Inn, Esquire, did demise to hire the
said piece of ground and [the] building [i.e., the playhouse]
thereupon to be erected, and the rent