Note 269a — XVI—THE CLOSE OF LIFE

The town council of Stratford-on-Avon, whose meeting-chamber almost overlooked Shakespeare’s residence of New Place, gave curious proof of their puritanic suspicion of the drama on February 7, 1612, when they passed a resolution that plays were unlawful and ‘the sufferance of them against the orders heretofore made and against the example of other well-governed cities and boroughs,’ and the council was therefore ‘content,’ the resolution ran, that ‘the penalty of xs. imposed [on players heretofore] be xli. henceforward.’ Ten years later the King’s players were bribed by the council to leave the city without playing. (See the present writer’s Stratford-on-Avon, p. 270.)