he wrote out a document entitled "Instructions for
my Patent," in which he advanced reasons why he should receive the
sole power to elect the members of the Queen's Company of Players. He
observes that under the existing arrangement the company was free to
leave the Salisbury Court Playhouse at their pleasure, "as in one year
and a half of their being here they have many times threatened"; and
he concludes by adding: "and one now of the chief fellows [i.e.,
sharers of the company], an agent for one [William Davenant] that hath
got a grant from the King for the building of a new playhouse which
was intended to be in Fleet Street, which no man can judge that a
fellow of our Company, and a well-wisher to those that own the house,
would ever be an actor in."[716] Doubtless the owners of other houses
had the same sentiments, and exercised what influence they possessed
against the scheme. But the most serious opposition in all probability
came from the citizens and merchants living in the neighborhood. We
know how bitterly they complained about the coaches that brought
playgoers to the small Blackfriars Theatre, and how strenuously from
year to year they sought the expulsion of the King's Men from the
precinct.[717] They certainly would not have regarded with complacency
the erection in their midst of a still larger theatre.

[Footnote 716: Cunningham, _The Whitefriars Theatre_, in _The
Shakespeare Society's Papers_, IV, 96.]

[Footnote 717: See the chapter on the Second Blackfriars.]

Whatever the opposition, it was so powerful that on October 2 Davenant
was compelled to make an indenture by which he virtually
renounced[718] for himself and his heirs for ever the right to build a
theatre in Fleet Street, or in any other place "in or near the cities,
or suburbs of the cities, of London or Westminster," without further
and special permission granted. This document, first printed by
Chalmers in his _Supplemental Apology_, is as follows:

This indenture made the second day of October, in the
fifteenth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord Charles,
by the grace of God, of England, Scotland, France, and
Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, &c. _Anno Domini_ 1639.
Between the said King's most excellent Majesty of the first
part, and William Davenant of London, Gent., of the other
part. Whereas the said King's most excellent Majesty, by His
Highness's letters patents under the Great Sea