eeable months of
the winter when the large playhouses in the suburbs were difficult of
access.

1594. Anthony Bacon, the elder brother of Francis, came to lodge in
Bishopsgate Street. This fact very much disturbed his good mother, who
feared lest his servants might be corrupted by the plays to be seen at
the Bull near by.[20]

[Footnote 20: See W. Rendle, _The Inns of Old Southwark_, p. 236.]

1596. William Lambarde, in his _Perambulation of Kent_,[21] observes
that none of those who go "to Paris Garden, the Bell Savage, or
Theatre, to behold bear-baiting, interludes, or fence play, can
account of any pleasant spectacle unless they first pay one penny at
the gate, another at the entry of the scaffold, and the third for a
quiet standing."

[Footnote 21: The passage does not appear in the earlier edition of
1576, though it was probably written shortly after the erection of the
Theatre in the autumn of 1576.]

1602. On March 31 the Privy Council wrote to the Lord Mayor that the
players of the Earl of Oxford and of the Earl of Worcester had been
"joined by agreement together in one company, to whom, upon notice of
Her Majesty's pleasure, at the suit of the Earl of Oxford, toleration
hath been thought meet to be granted." The letter concludes:

And as the other companies that are allowed, namely of me
the Lord Admiral, and the Lord Chamberlain, be appointed
their certain houses, and one and no more to each company,
so we do straightly require that this third company be
likewise [appointed] to one place. And because we are
informed the house called the Boar's Head is the place they
have especially used and do best like of, we do pray and
require you that the said house, namely the Boar's Head, may
be assigned unto them.[22]

[Footnote 22: _The Remembrancia_, The Malone Society's _Collections_,
I, 85.]

That the strong Oxford-Worcester combination should prefer the Boar's
Head to the Curtain or the Rose Playhouse,[23] indicates that the
inn-yard was not only large, but also well-equipped for acting.

[Footnote 23: They had to use the Rose nevertheless; see page 158.]

1604. In a draft of a license to be issued to Queen Anne's Company,
those players are allowed to act "as well within their now usual
houses, called the Curtain and the Boar's Head, within our County of
Middlesex, as in any other playhouse not used by others."[24]

[Footnote 24: The Malone Society's _Coll