protected against any violent action on the part of the municipal
authorities by the known favor of the Queen and the frequent
interference of the Privy Council. This state of affairs was not, of
course, comfortable for the actors; but it was by no means desperate,
and for several years after the passage of the ordinance of 1574 they
continued without serious interruption to occupy their inn-playhouses.

The long-continued hostility of the city authorities, however, of
which the ordinance of 1574 was an ominous expression, led more or
less directly to the construction of special buildings devoted to
plays and situated beyond the jurisdiction of the Common Council. As
the Reverend John Stockwood, in _A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse,
1578_, indignantly puts it:

Have we not _houses of purpose_, built with great charges
for the maintenance of plays, and that _without the
liberties_, as who would say "_There, let them say what they
will say, we will play!_"

Thus came into existence playhouses; and with them dawned a new era in
the history of the English drama.

[Illustration: THE SITE OF THE FIRST PLAYHOUSES

Finsbury Field and Holywell. The man walking from the Field towards
Shoreditch is just entering Holywell Lane.

(From Agas's _Map of London_, representing the city as it was about
1560.)]

CHAPTER III

THE THEATRE

The hostility of the city to the drama was unquestionably the main
cause of the erection of the first playhouse; yet combined with this
were two other important causes, usually overlooked. The first was the
need of a building specially designed to meet the requirements of the
players and of the public, a need yearly growing more urgent as plays
became more complex, acting developed into a finer art, and audiences
increased in dignity as well as in size. The second and the more
immediate cause was the appearance of a man with business insight
enough to see that such a building would pay. The first playhouse, we
should remember, was not erected by a troupe of actors, but by a
money-seeking individual.[30] Although he was himself an actor, and
the manager of a troupe, he did not, it seems, take the troupe into
his confidence. In complete independence of any theatrical
organization he proceeded with the erection of his building as a
private speculation; and, we are told, he dreamed of the "continual
great profit and commodity through plays that should be used there