ing and
confederating himself with the said Richard Burbage and one
Peter Street, William Smith, and diverse other persons to
the number of twelve, to your subject unknown, did about
the eight and twentieth day of December, in the one and
fortieth year of your highness reign, and sithence your
highness last and general pardon, by the confederacy
aforesaid, riotously assembled themselves together, and then
and there armed themselves with diverse and many unlawful
and offensive weapons, as namely swords, daggers, bills,
axes, and such like, and so armed did then repair unto the
said Theatre, and then and there armed as aforesaid, in very
riotous, outrageous, and forceable manner, and contrary to
the laws of your highness realm, attempted to pull down the
said Theatre. Whereupon, diverse of your subjects, servants
and farmers, then going about in peaceable manner to procure
them to desist from that unlawful enterprise, they, the said
riotous persons aforesaid, notwithstanding procured then
therein with great violence, not only then and there
forcibly and riotously resisting your subjects, servants,
and farmers, but also then and there pulling, breaking, and
throwing down the said Theatre in very outrageous, violent,
and riotous sort.[90]

[Footnote 90: Wallace, _op. cit._, pp. 278-79. This document was
discovered by J.O. Halliwell-Phillipps, who printed extracts in his
_Outlines_. See also Ordish, _Early London Theatres_, pp. 75-76.]

The workmen, under the expert direction of Peter Street, carried the
timber and other materials of the old Theatre to the tract of land on
the Bankside recently leased by the new syndicate--as Gyles Alleyn
puts it, "did then also in most forcible and riotous manner take and
carry away from thence all the wood and timber thereof unto the
Bankside, in the Parish of St. Mary Overies, and there erected a new
playhouse with the said timber and wood."

The playhouse thus erected was, of course, an entirely new structure.
Nearly a quarter of a century had elapsed since James Burbage designed
the old Theatre, during which time a great development had taken place
both in histrionic art and in play writing; and, no doubt, many
improvements were possible in the stage and in the auditorium to
provide better facilities for the actors and greater comfort for the
spectators. In designing such i