e.]

[Footnote 682: Mrs. Betterton.]

[Illustration: THE COCKPIT-IN-COURT

From an engraving by Mazell in Pennant's _London_. Mr. W.L. Spiers,
who reproduces this engraving in the _London Topographical Record_
(1903), says that it is "undated, but probably copied from a
contemporary drawing of the seventeenth century."]

Two entries, from an entirely different source, must suffice for this
history of the Cockpit. In the Paper-Office Chalmers discovered a
record of the following payments, made in 1667:

To the Keeper of the theatre at Whitehall, L30. To the same
for Keeping clean that place, _p. ann._ L6.[683]

[Footnote 683: Chalmers, _Apology_, p. 530. Cunningham says, in his
_Handbook of London_: "I find in the records of the Audit Office a
payment of L30 per annum 'to the Keeper of our Playhouse called the
Cockpit in St. James Park'"; but he does not state the year in which
the payment was made.]

And in the Lord Chamberlain's Accounts is preserved the following
warrant:

1674, March 27. Warrant to deliver to Monsieur Grabu, or to
such as he shall appoint, such of the scenes remaining in
the theatre at Whitehall as shall be useful for the French
Opera at the theatre in Bridges Street, and the said
Monsieur to return them again safely after 14 days' time to
the theatre at Whitehall.[684]

[Footnote 684: I quote from W.J. Lawrence, _The Elizabethan Playhouse_
(First Series), p. 144.]

What became of the theatre at Whitehall I have not been able to
ascertain.[685] Presumably, after the fire of January, 1698, which
destroyed the greater part of the palace and drove the royal family to
seek quarters elsewhere, the building along with the rest of the
Cockpit section was made over into the Privy Council offices.

[Footnote 685: The reasons why the Cockpit at Whitehall has remained
so long in obscurity (its history is here attempted for the first
time) are obvious. Some scholars have confused it with the public
playhouse of the same name, a confusion which persons in the days of
Charles avoided by invariably saying "The Cockpit in Drury Lane."
Other scholars have confused it with the residential section of
Whitehall which bore the same name. During the reign of James several
large buildings which had been erected either on the site of the old
cockpit of Henry VIII, or around it, were converted into lodgings for
members of the royal family or favorites of the King, and we