re
commonly referred to as "the Cockpit." Other scholars have assumed
that all plays during the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles were
given either in the Banqueting House or in the Great Hall. Finally,
still other scholars (e.g., Sir Sidney Lee, in _Shakespeare's
England_, 1916) have confused the Cockpit at Whitehall with the Royal
Cockpit in St. James's Park. Exactly when the latter was built I have
not been able to discover, but it was probably erected near the close
of the seventeenth century. It stood at the end of Dartmouth Street,
adjacent to Birdcage Walk, but not in the Park itself. John Strype, in
his edition of Stow's _Survey_ (1720), bk. VI, p. 64, says of
Dartmouth Street: "And here is a very fine Cockpit, called the King's
Cockpit, well resorted unto." A picture of the building is given by
Strype on page 62, and a still better picture may be found in J.T.
Smith's _The Antiquities of Westminster_. The Royal Cockpit in
Dartmouth Street survived until 1816, when it was torn down. Hogarth,
in his famous representation of a cock-fight, shows its interior as
circular, and as embellished with the royal coat of arms. Another
interesting picture of the interior will be found in Ackermann's _The
Microcosm of London_ (1808). It is needless to add that this building
had nothing whatever to do with the theatre royal of the days of King
Charles.]

CHAPTER XXI

MISCELLANEOUS

I

WOLF'S THEATRE IN NIGHTINGALE LANE, NEAR EAST SMITHFIELD

In Jeaffreson's _Middlesex County Records_ (I, 260), we find the
following entry, dated April 1, 1600:

1 April, 42 Elizabeth.--Recognizance, taken before Sir John
Peyton knt., Lieutenant of the Tower of London, and Thomas
Fowler, Tobias Woode, Edward Vaghan and Henry Thoresby
esqs., Justices of the Peace, of John Wolf, of
Eastsmithfield, co. Midd., stationer, in the sum of forty
pounds; The condition of the recognizance being "that,
whereas the above-bounden John Wolf hath begun to erect and
build a playhouse in Nightingale Lane near East Smithfield
aforesaid, contrary to Her Majesty's proclamation and orders
set down in Her Highness's Court of Starchamber. If
therefore the said John Wolf do not proceed any further in
building or erecting of the same playhouse, unless he shall
procure sufficient warrant from the Rt. Honourable the Lords
of Her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council for further