At Home to the Players: Travelling Players at Country Houses

The Red Lion and the White Horse: Inns used by Patronized Performers in Norwich, 1583-1624

“…22 The members of the audience who gave testimony about the incident were, as Keenan has noted, a fairly respectable group from Norwich and the surrounding areas: Edmund Knee was a yeoman of Yelverton, Edmund Brown a draper of Norwich, and William Kylby a worsted weaver of Pockthorpe. 23 Although they might be suspected of slanting their stories in their own favour before the Quarter Sessions justices, their accounts are corroborated by others who were not inside the inn-yard when the incident began: these were Thomas Holland, a carrier of Norwich, George Iackson, a brewer of Norwich, and Margerye and Elizabeth, the wives of Thomas Bloome and Robert Davy. 24 The respectable people mentioned in the records of the affray testimonies are representative of the kind of people who normally frequented English inns as opposed to alehouses during this period.…”

“…Siobhan Keenan argues that 'the Stage' Tarlton and Bentley descended from may have been 'an improvised platform made from barrels or forms' like the stages constructed in the Guildhall and New Hall and was probably 'placed opposite the gated entrance', which 'could explain how the actors became so quickly aware that there was a disturbance at the entrance'; she thinks, too, that 'it is likely that the spectators stood'. 20 Under these conditions, it is remarkable that no one else was hurt when the actors rushed through the crowd with their weapons. Eyewitness accounts are conflicting as to whether the players had their weapons drawn at first or ran 'of the Staige with there Swordes in there handes being in the scaberdes'; but Bentley would soon draw his 'raper' and use its hilt to strike Wynsdon; and when Syngar, after him, 'ran vp into the stayge' for his weapon, he retrieved a massive, twohanded 'Armynge Sworde' suitable for military combat, with which to strike the unfortunate George.…”

“…According to Peter Clark, they 'tended to be drawn from the landed, mercantile and professional classes'. 25 However crowded and hot and thrilled by the play -which, as Keenan suggests, based on evidence provided by McMillin and MacLean, might have been The Famous Victories of Henry V, 26 a rowdy, nationalistic play with plenty of violence and slapstick comedy -the audience inside the Red Lion gate behaved like responsible, ticket-buying citizens.…”

“…39 Keenan has shown that, of the nineteen regional towns whose records had been collected in REED editions by the time she was writing in 2002, payments not to play were by far more frequent in Norwich than in any other town. 40 Despite the disturbance at the Red Lion, Norwich continued to be friendlier to patronized players -even when they were not permitted to play -than any other provincial town we can name.…”

“…As Keenan notes, Sunday playing would not be forbidden by the crown until 1603; this was a local problem. 44 The need to manage the plague that broke out again in 1589 was another factor. 45 And the fact that the proclamation banned attendance at plays, rather than the performance of plays, is less odd if we consider that it was politically useful for Bowde to appear to be creating a new source of funds for poor relief.…”