Note 551 — Chapter XXIV · PLAYERS OF INTERLUDES

Willis, Mount Tabor (1639, quoted Collier, ii. 196), describing the morality of The Castle of Security seen by him as a child, says ‘In the city of Gloucester the manner is (as I think it is in other like corporations) that when Players of Enterludes come to towne, they first attend the Mayor, to enforme him what noble-mans servants they are and so to get licence for their publike playing: and if the Mayor like the Actors, or would show respect to their Lord and Master, he appoints them to play their first play before himselfe and the Aldermen and Common Counsell of the City; and that is called the Mayor’s play, where every one that will comes in without money, the Mayor giving the players a reward as hee thinks fit, to show respect unto them. At such a play, my father tooke me with him, and made mee stand betweene his leggs, as he sate upon one of the benches, where we saw and heard very well.’ In Histriomastix, a play of 1590-1610 (Simpson, School of Shakespeare, ii. 1), a crew of tippling mechanicals call themselves ‘Sir Oliver Owlet’s men and proclaim at the Cross a play to be given in the townhouse at 3 o’clock. They afterwards throw the town over to play in the hall of Lord Mavortius.’ In Sir Thomas More (†1590, ed. A. Dyce, for Shakespeare Society, 1844) ‘my Lord Cardinall’s players,’ four men and a boy, play in the Chancellor’s hall and receive ten angels. For similar scenes cf. the Induction to The Taming of the Shrew, and Hamlet, ii. 2; iii. 2.