ost of the
building itself, for he did not buy the ground on which it stood. This
ground belonged to one Giles Allen, and in the contract between him and
Burbage it was settled, among other points, that if, in the course of
the first ten years after the drawing up of the lease, Burbage spent a
sum of two hundred pounds or more on the building, he should have a
right to remove it after the expiration of the lease.

The lease was drawn up in the year 1576, for a period of twenty-one
years. In spite of many pecuniary difficulties, which the heavy rent and
high interest naturally entailed on Burbage--who for some time even
seems to have been obliged to mortgage his entire property--and
innumerable annoyances from the Puritans, Burbage succeeded in keeping
his theatre above water till the expiration of the lease and till his
own death, which occurred in 1597.

But before this date he had been negotiating with the proprietor, Giles
Allen, about a prolongation of the lease. Allen, who was evidently as
grasping as he was difficult to deal with, and who may not unjustly be
suspected of having been an instrument in the hands of the Puritan
authorities, had caused him a good deal of trouble in the course of
years. On seeing how people crowded to the theatre, he had tried, for
one thing, to press Burbage for a higher rent, and partly for religious,
partly for moral reasons, had threatened to forbid the running of a
playhouse on his property. The negotiations about the new lease had not
come to an end when the elder Burbage died, and left his two sons,
Cuthbert, who was a bookseller, and Richard, who was the leading actor
of his time, not only burdened with the playhouse, the long lease of
which had expired, but opposed by a proprietor with whom it was
impossible to come to terms, and by a magistrate who was more eager than
ever to deal a blow at the playhouses.

In the same year, when the two brothers took on The Theatre, the lord
mayor of London actually succeeded in inducing the privy council to
issue an order of suppression against it and other playhouses. The order
begins as follows: "Her Majestie being informed that there are verie
greate disorders committed in the common playhouses both by lewd matters
that are handled on the stages, and by resorte and confluence of bad
people, hathe given direction that not onlie no playes shall be used
within London or about the Citty, or in any public place, during this
tyme of sommer,