14 March, 1595 - The Siege of London, a hiatus, and some renovations

Here's what the Admiral's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: y^e 14 of marche 1594 ... R at the sege of london ... xiiij^s 

In modern English: 14^th March, 1595 ... Received at The Siege of London ... 14 shillings

Thomas Neville's siege of London, from a
1391 French manuscript

Today, the Admiral's Men staged The Siege of London, an enigmatic lost play that might have portrayed the attacks on London by Canute in 1016 or by Thomas Neville in 1471. You can read more about this play in the entry for 27 December, 1594.

A hiatus and some renovations to the Rose

This blog will now be on hiatus for about five weeks because Henslowe's Diary records a break in performances until Easter. We don't know the reason for this: perhaps the authorities ordered the players to cease performing during Lent, but perhaps the players themselves chose to do so; after all, they had been performing non-stop since June.

During the break, Henslowe will take the opportunity to make some renovations to the Rose, which he will record in a list of expenditures headed "A note what I have laid out about my playhouse for painting and doing it about with elm-boards and other reparations".

The most interesting thing in the document is some money paid "for carpenter's work and making the throne in the heavens". This refers to machinery installed in the roof over the stage that would permit a throne to be lowered down to the stage. The playwright Ben Jonson sneers at this device in a 1616 prologue to his play Every Man in his Humour as the "creaking throne" that "comes down, the boys to please".

Henslowe's Diary ... as a Blog! will return on 21 April - see you then!

FURTHER READING

On the hiatus and renovations

• Transcript of Henslowe's renovation expenditures (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition of the Diary)
• Facsimile of Henslowe's renovation expenditures (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)
• Carol Chillington Rutter, Documents of the Rose Playhouse (Manchester University Press, 1984), 90-1.

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

Comments?

Did I make a mistake? Do you have a question? Have you anything to add? Please post a comment below!