d probably returned to
London shortly after. See Murray, _English Dramatic Companies_, I, 8.]

[Footnote 93: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 66.]

[Footnote 94: Lord Hunsdon, on October 8, 1594, requested the Lord
Mayor to permit the Chamberlain's Men "to play this winter time within
the city at the Cross Keys in Gracious Street." See The Malone
Society's _Collections_, I, 67.]

[Footnote 95: The Malone Society's _Collections_, I, 170, 172.]

That this playhouse for a time, at least, was the Theatre is indicated
by several bits of evidence. Thus the author of _Martin's Month's
Mind_ (1589) speaks of "twittle-twattles that I had learned in
ale-houses and at the Theatre of Lanham and his fellows." Again, Nash,
in _Pierce Penniless_ (1592), writes: "Tarleton at the Theatre made
jests of him"; Harrington, in _The Metamorphosis of Ajax_ (1596):
"Which word was after admitted into the Theatre with great applause,
by the mouth of Master Tarleton"; and the author of _Tarlton's Newes
out of Purgatory_ (_c._ 1589) represents Tarleton as connected with
the Theatre. Now, unless Lanham, Tarleton, and their "fellows" usually
or sometimes acted at the Theatre, it is hard to understand these and
other similar passages.

The following episode tends to prove the same thing. On June 18, 1584,
William Fleetwood, Recorder, wrote to Lord Burghley:[96]

Right honorable and my very good lord. Upon Whitsunday there
was a very good sermon preached at the new churchyard near
Bethelem, whereat my Lord Mayor was with his brethren; and
by reason no plays were the same day, all the city was
quiet. Upon Monday I was at the Court.... That night I
returned to London and found all the wards full of watchers;
the cause thereof was for that very near the Theatre or
Curtain, at the time of the plays, there lay a prentice
sleeping upon the grass; and one Challes, at Grostock, did
turn upon the toe upon the belly of the same prentice.
Whereupon the apprentice start up.

[Footnote 96: The letter is printed in full in The Malone Society's
_Collections_, I, 164.]

In the altercation that followed, Challes remarked that "prentices
were but the scum of the world." This led to a general rising of
apprentices, and much disorder throughout the city. Fleetwood records
the upshot thus:

Upon Sunday my Lord [Mayor] sent two aldermen to the court
for the suppressing and pulling down of th