Southwark was a city of a various population. It had great Houses for nobles and for Ecclesiastics: it had fair inns for the reception of merchants, coming up from Kent and the south country: it had a riverside people of fishermen and watermen living up stream on the Lambeth bank or down stream at Bermondsey or Rotherhithe: it had a great number of residents who worked in the orchards and the gardens which spread over the whole of the rich low-lying land now embanked, secure from floods and the highest tides. It contained, besides, a large number of rogues and vagabonds, fugitives from justice, lying here in so-called sanctuary, where the officers of the law did not dare to present themselves. In spite of the powers granted to the City over Southwark, the place remained a receptacle and a refuge 'down to the end of the last century, when the so-called Liberties of the Mint'—the last place of sanctuary—were finally abolished and only a slum remained to mark the site of a sanctuary.
WINCHESTER PALACE WINCHESTER PALACE
Beside all these people Southwark contained the Show Folk of Bankside. When the Show Folk began to live in Bankside I know not: their settlement originally was in Westminster outside the King's Palace, where there was always a great demand for music, dancing, tumbling, mumming and such recreative performances; they were also, however, in great request in London by City Church, city company, and city tavern. Now there was no place for them within the walls: they had no company: there was neither a Musicians'; nor a Dancers'; nor a Singers'; nor a Mummers';{207} nor a Tumblers' Company. There was no company which would admit them; there was no ward where they could get a street for themselves: they were gently but firmly pushed out. And not only were they a class apart but they were a class in contempt. It was always held contemptible to{208} provide amusement. No one, as yet, had made of music or of acting a fine art; no gentleman, as yet, and for a long time after, would take part in the buffoonery which the actor had then to exhibit: an atmosphere of disrepute attached to the calling, to those who followed the calling, and to the place where they lived: in the City, Aldermen had a way of connecting nocturnal disorders with these children of melody: where they resorted the taverns would carry on their revelries after curfew, even to midnight: if the street was alarmed by nocturnal ramblers it would prove to be after an evening with the dancers and the tumblers: the Church, especially the Church Puritanic, set her face against those who devised entertainments, on the ground that the devisers were an ungodly and dissolute crew. Therefore they crossed the river. On Bankside, in the Liberty of the Clink, where the City could not interfere, they 'went as they pleased.' They were dissolute, if they chose—Heaven knows whether they did choose—without reproach: their taverns kept open house as long as they would stop to drink: there was singing every day without interference: there was merriment without the rebuke of the sour face: there was no fear of being haled before the Lord Mayor, for making people laugh: there was no terror of pillory, and no man on their side of the river was 'put in stocks o' Monday, for kissing of his wife o' Sunday.' It was the Bishop of Winchester's Liberty, but he was content, on the whole, to leave the residents unmolested and in the possession of their guitars, their fiddles, their songs and their plays.
THE GLOBE THEATRE THE GLOBE THEATRE
(From the Crace Collection)
When the Show Folk were wanted in the City it was easy for them to go across: they were ready at a moment's notice to arrange a pageant, or to take part in one: they could provide the beauteous maidens in white with long fair tresses who stood on platforms in Chepe and scattered gold rose nobles made of paste on the heads of the crowd: they found hermits, and constructed caves for those godly men in the{209} midst of Gracious Street: they found the music for the dragging of the traitor on a hurdle: for the march of the rogue to the pillory: for the riding of the Lord Mayor: for the procession of the Company on its feast day. For a miracle play they presented the parish church with the Fall of Man: the Raising of Lazarus: the Pilgrims of Emmaus: David and Goliath: or any other episode from the Bible—how many excellent players there were among them whose names have long since been forgotten! They knew how to present a Masque—not, perhaps, with the same splendour as one by{210} Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones—who commanded the King's purse—but a neat and creditable affair, with dresses appropriate, full of surprises, and furnished with mythological characters, for the Hall of a City Company on the day of the Annual Feast. For young gentlemen of the more debauched kind they had another kind of entertainment, with singing, dancing girls, tumbling and posturing; with rare jests—pity they were not rarer—and excellent fooling by their clowns. The modern art of acting did not begin at the Globe Theatre: there has never been any time when the actor was unknown: the only difference is that he was not formerly allowed to be anything but a buffoon: that he had little but buffoonery in his répertoire: and now he is an artist and scorns the tricks of the buffoon. Nor is the art of entertainment of modern invention. The Company of Parish Clerks, for instance, were great promoters of sacred plays. Their poets—whose names are entirely lost—provided the words and arranged the scenes; the members of the company played the parts: the Show Folk 'mounted' the piece: they provided the monsters; the red flames for the mouth of Hell; the troops of angels or of devils, the stage business and the music. Many of the Parish Churches had their annual play on their Saint's Day. Thus the Parish Church of St. Margaret, which was taken down when St. Mary Overies' became St. Saviour's, had its play on St. Margaret's Day (July 20), and often another on the Day of St. Lucy (December 13) as well. We have already observed that the Londoner of old never made any difference in the matter of Play or Pageant whether the time was summer or winter. He was like the Scythian, face all over: he felt no cold: he held his Riding, or his Coronation Procession, quite as readily in December as in July.
Another kind of Show Folk, but rougher and more brutal, were the people who looked after the bears and the dogs. Bull baiting, bear baiting, sometimes horse baiting, together with badger baiting, duck hunting, cock throwing, dog{211} fighting and cock fighting, were the chosen and common sports of the people. Baiting of every kind there was wherever there were dogs and bulls and badgers, but the centre and headquarters of the sport was South London, in the place called Paris Gardens. The popularity of the sport is shown by the simple facts that there was not only bull and bear baiting in Paris Gardens, but also two rings or amphitheatres for bull and bear baiting outside the gardens behind Bankside, and that in the High Street itself, nearly opposite St. George's Church, there was permanently established the bull ring to which an animal could be tied whenever one was found fit for the purpose of affording an hour's sport by the madness of his rage or the agonies of his death.
The present Blackfriars Bridge Road cuts through the site of Paris Gardens, leaving a portion on either side. They extended to the distance of about a quarter of a mile south of the river: sluggish streams and ditches ran across and round the gardens, which were so thickly planted with trees as to be dark in the summer. Both in summer and winter the place was noisome with exhalations from the marshy soil. These gardens were the chief home of the rough and cruel sports already mentioned: here were kept under the King's bearward the King's dogs; the Mayor's dogs; and the bears whom they baited. It does not appear that bulls were also kept here: for baiting purposes it was generally a young bull that was chosen, and he was baited to death. The bears were not killed, they were all known to the people by name, such as Harry Hunks and Sackerson, and were valued in proportion to the sport they afforded. The dogs, who with the bears were fed upon the offal and refuse brought over every day from the Shambles of Newgate, were incredibly fierce and savage. In these days we hardly know what a savage dog is, even the bull dog has become peaceful: formerly, the best defender of the house was the dog who was unloosed at night: they fed him chiefly on meat: he was{212} trained to fly at the throat of a stranger: he was a terror to wayfarers—remember the dog in the second part of the 'Pilgrim's Progress:' he was always biting and rending some one: he had the ferocity of the wolf redeemed only by affection for his master: we have no such dogs in these days. Accompanied by one or two such fierce mastiffs or bull dogs who feared no one but their master, a man might journey from end to end of the country armed with nothing but a club. Such a dog would fight and would overcome a man. Kept in the kennels, with insufficient exercise, with stimulating food, the creatures became fiercer than wolves and stronger than tigers. The bull they loved to bait: he had horns and hoofs to dodge: but the bear afforded the best sport both for man and dog: he presented a nose and ears and a thick fur on which to spring, and to fasten the canine teeth upon. What joy to hang on to those ears, torn and bleeding, the whole dog quivering with rapture even though in the end one stroke of the bear's hind paw dragged out the inside of the dog, with the heart and the breath of life!
It was a Royal sport, a sport offered to ambassadors. In a contemporary Diary it is related that the French Ambassadors, on May 25, 1559, were entertained at Court with a dinner, and after dinner with a bull and bear baiting, the Queen herself looking on from a gallery: the next day they were taken down the river to see the bull and bear baiting at Paris Gardens. Forty years later James the First entertained the Spanish Ambassador after dinner with the bears fighting with greyhounds and with a bull baiting. About the same time the Duke of Wirtemberg paid a visit to London and saw the baiting at Paris Gardens:
'On the 1st of September his Highness was shown in London the English dogs, of which there were about 120, all kept in the same enclosure, but each in a separate kennel.
'In order to gratify his Highness, and at his desire, two bears and a bull were baited; at such times you can perceive the breed and mettle of the dogs, for although they{213} receive serious injuries from the bears, are caught by the horns of the bull, and tossed into the air so as frequently to fall down again upon the horns, they do not give in, [but fasten on the bull so firmly] that one is obliged to pull them back by the tails, and force open their jaws. Four dogs at once were set on the bull; they, however, could not gain any advantage over him, for he so artfully contrived to ward off their attacks that they could not well get at him; on the contrary, the bull served them very scurvily by striking and butting at them.'
BEAR GARDEN BEAR GARDEN
And another contemporary account of a bear baiting is furnished by Hentzner in 1598:
'There is still another place, built in the form of a Theatre, which serves for the baiting of bears and bulls: they are fastened behind, and then worried by those great English dogs (quos lingua vernacula "Docken" appellant), and mastiffs, but not without great risks to the dogs from the teeth of the one and the horns of the other, and it sometimes happens they are killed on the spot: fresh ones are immediately{214} supplied in the places of those that are wounded or tired. To this entertainment there often follows that of whipping a blinded bear, which is performed by five or six men, standing in a circle with whips, which they exercise upon him without any mercy; although he cannot escape from them because of his chain, he nevertheless defends himself vigorously, throwing down all who come within his reach and are not active enough to get out of it, tearing the whips out of their hands and breaking them. At these spectacles, and everywhere else, the English are constantly smoking the Nicotian weed, which in America is called Tobaca—others call it P?tum—[i.e. Petun, the Brazilian name for Tobacco, from which the allied beautiful plant 'Petunia' derives its appellation,] and generally in this manner: they have pipes on purpose made of clay, into the farther end of which they put the herb, so dry that it may be rubbed into powder, and lighting it, they draw the smoke into their mouths, which they puff out again through their nostrils like funnels, along with it plenty of phlegm and defluxion from the head. In these Theatres, fruits, such as apples, pears and nuts, according to the season, are carried about to be sold, as well as wine and ale.'
Bear baiting was so popular that fellows roamed about the country leading a bear which they offered to be baited for so much an hour at the inns which they passed. The master of the 'King's Game' had power to seize upon any mastiff dogs, bears, or bulls for the King's service and to bait in any place within his dominions. Henslow and Alleyn, both actors, were also masters of the King's Game: they had licence to apprehend all vagrants travelling with bears and bulls.
There was another place where the refining influence of the bear baiting might be enjoyed. Its site is still preserved in the lane called Bear Garden Alley. In Agas's map of 1560 an amphitheatre is shown called the 'Bear Baiting:' a little to the west another amphitheatre is seen called the 'Bull{215} Baiting.' Whether these places were the only buildings erected for this amusement or whether they were put up in addition to the place in Paris Gardens is a point for the antiquary. It is learnedly discussed by Mr. Ordish ('Early London Theatres'). The Spanish Ambassador in 1544 describes a bear baiting—but he does not say exactly where he saw it. 'On the other side of the town' is vague. I think, however, that he must mean Paris Gardens:
'On the other side of the town we have seen seven bears, some of them very large; they are driven into a circus, where they are confined by a long rope, while large and courageous dogs are let loose upon them as if to be devoured, and a fight takes place. It is not bad sport to witness the conflict. The large bears contend with three or four dogs, and sometimes one is victorious and sometimes the other; the bears are ferocious and of great strength, and not only defend themselves with their teeth, but hug the dogs so closely with their forelegs, that, if they were not rescued by their masters, they would be suffocated. At the same place a pony is baited, with a monkey on its back, defending itself against the dogs by kicking them; and the shrieks of the monkey, when he sees the dogs hanging from the ears and neck of the pony, render the scene very laughable.'
In the year 1550 Crowley, the author of certain 'Epigrams' against abuses, mentions Paris Gardens (see Stow and Strype, 1758, vol. ii. p. 8).
Every Sunday they will spend One penny or two, the bearward's living to mend. At Paris Gardens each Sunday, a man shall not fail To find two or three hundred for the bearward's vale.
Later on there was certainly an amphitheatre in Paris Gardens, because an accident happened there.
'The same 13th day of Januarie, being Sunday about foure of the clock in the afternoon, the old and under-propped scaffolds round about the Beare Garden, commonly called{216} Paris Garden, on the south side of the great river Thames over against the citie of London, over-deluged with people, fell suddenly downe, whereby to number of eight persons, men and women, were slaine and many others sore hurt and bruised to the shortening of their lives. A friendly warning to all that delight themselves in the cruelties of beastes than in the workes of mercy, the fruits of a true, professed faith, which ought to be the Sabbath dayes exercise.' (Stow's 'Annals,' continued by Hawes.)
The amphitheatre would hold a thousand people.
The sport had other dangers: the bear, for instance, might get loose. Once the blind bear got loose: it was on December 9, 1554, and on the Bankside, probably at the amphitheatre outside Paris Gardens. He caught a serving man by the leg 'and bytt a grate pesse away, and after by the hokyll bone, that within iii days after he ded' (Machyn).
Wherever such sports were carried on there must needs spring up a rabble rout who made their living by them: the bearward, the serving man who kept the kennels, fed the dogs, exercised the dogs, fed the bears, looked after the amphitheatre, took the money, and above all provided the drink. In the little lane now called the Bear Garden, there is a small square place which I take to be the survival of an open court in front of the circus. There is here a small tavern: the house itself is not ancient, but I believe that it stands on the site of the house which provided wine and beer for the spectators of the bear baiting. These sports, with others such as wrestling and fighting: these great crowds of people gathering together: the music which accompanied everything: caused the creation of taverns and drinking-places. Another attraction to the place may be only hinted at in these pages. Suffice it to say that all the profligate, all the debauched, all the rowdy, all the lovers of sport among the citizens of London crossed over to Bankside every evening in the summer and every Sunday in the winter, and{217} there they frolicked, drank, sang, quarrelled, fought, and tortured animals to their hearts' content.
It is pleasant to think of Bankside and the fields beyond it—the pleasure garden of London. It was easy to get into the open country on every side of the City walls, but there was no place so pleasant as the Lambeth Marsh and the Bankside: none that offered so many and such various attractions. The flag flying over the Theatre proclaimed that a play was forward: the number of those who loved the play more than the baiting increased daily: there was never a time when the citizens did not love the green fields and the woods: and these lay behind Paris Gardens and the Bank, beyond the barking of the dogs and the roar of the crowd and the blare of the music and the stink of the kennels. Every summer evening the river was crowded with the boats taking the people across to the stairs upon the Bank between St. Mary Overies and Old Barge House Stairs: innumerable were the boats. As for the watermen, John Taylor, the water poet, says that there were 40,000 of them plying between Windsor and Gravesend, while the number of people who were carried over every day to the plays on Bankside was three or four thousand. Forty thousand seems an enormous number, but we must remember that there were no docks: that ships were laden and unladen in mid stream by barges and boats: that the Thames was the highway between London and all riverside places; between London and Westminster; between London and Southwark, because even if one lived close to the bridge it was easier and quicker to be taken across by a boat than to walk over the bridge. The conveyance of three or four thousand people across the river every day would not want more ............