the Bankside a great match played by the gamesters of Essex,
who hath challenged all comers whatsoever to play five dogs
at the single bear for five pounds, and also to weary a bull
dead at the stake; and for your better content [you] shall
have pleasant sport with the horse and ape and whipping of
the blind bear. _Vivat Rex!_

In 1613 the Bear Garden was torn down, and a new and handsomer
structure erected in its place. For the history of this building the
reader is referred to the chapter on "The Hope."

CHAPTER VIII

NEWINGTON BUTTS

The Bankside, as the preceding chapter indicates, offered unusual
attractions to the actors. It had, indeed, long been associated with
the drama: in 1545 King Henry VIII, in a proclamation against
vagabonds, players,[195] etc., noted their "fashions commonly used at
the Bank, and such like naughty places, where they much haunt"; and in
1547 the Bishop of Winchester made complaint that at a time when he
intended to have a dirge and mass for the late King, the actors in
Southwark planned to exhibit "a solemn play, to try who shall have the
most resort, they in game or I in earnest."[196] The players,
therefore, were no strangers to "the Bank." And when later in the
century the hostility of the Common Council drove them to seek homes
in localities not under the jurisdiction of the city, the suburb
across the river offered them a suitable refuge. For, although a large
portion of Southwark was under the jurisdiction of London, certain
parts were not, notably the Liberty of the Clink and the Manor of
Paris Garden, two sections bordering the river's edge, and the
district of Newington lying farther back to the southwest. In these
places the actors could erect their houses and entertain the public
without fear of the ordinances of the Corporation, and without danger
of interruption by puritanical Lord Mayors.

[Footnote 195: It is just possible--but, I think, improbable--that the
term "common players" as used in this proclamation referred to
gamblers. The term is regularly used in law to designate actors.]

[Footnote 196: _The Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1547_,
February 5, p. 1; cf. Tytler's _Edward VI and Mary_, I, 20.]

Yet, as we have seen, the first public playhouses were erected not on
the Bankside--a "naughty" place,--but near Finsbury Field to the north
of the city; and the reasons which led to the selection of such a
quiet and respecta