" At last they proposed, as a compromise, that the
players of the queen, or of Lord Leicester--for these titles seem to
have been bestowed upon the actors indifferently--should be permitted
to perform within the city boundaries upon certain special conditions,
to the effect that their names and number should be notified to the
Lord Mayor and the Justices of Middlesex and Surrey, and that they
should not divide themselves into several companies; that they should
be content with playing in private houses, at weddings, &c., without
public assemblies, or "if more be thought good to be tolerated," that
they should not play openly till the whole deaths in London had been
for twenty days under fifty a week; that they should not play on the
Sabbath or on holy days until after evening prayer; and that no
playing should be in the dark, "nor continue any such time but as any
of the auditoire may returne to their dwellings in London before
sonne-set, or at least before it be dark." These severe restrictions
so far defeated the objects of the civic powers, that they led in
truth to the construction of three theatres beyond the Lord Mayor's
jurisdiction, but sufficiently near to its boundaries to occasion him
grave disquietude.
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