London

by Edward Rutherfurd

  Tap. Tap. At first the sounds had been carefully muffled. For the carpenters had gone cleverly about their work. Joints scraped free of plaster and loosened, boards prised gently apart, all round the inside of the playhouse, they had worked as silently as possible in the lamplight. Already the stage was reduced to a skeleton. Now, an hour before dawn, it was time for the hammering to begin.

  Heads began to pop out of windows. There were cries. Doors opened. Pulling coats round them, neighbours began to emerge – to be met, smiling and even courteous, by Edmund Meredith, who assured them, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, that the noise would soon be over. When asked what the workmen were doing he blankly replied: “Why – dismantling the Theatre. We are taking it away.”

  And that is exactly what they did. In an exploit unique in theatrical history, the Burbages took their playhouse apart, timber by timber, and removed it to build another one.

  The sun was already well up before Alderman Ducket pushed through the crowd of spectators. His face was white with fury. He demanded to know what was going on.

  “We are just taking our playhouse away,” Edmund told him sweetly.

  “You can’t touch it! This theatre belongs to Giles Allen and your lease is finished.”

  But Meredith only smiled more sweetly still. “The ground belongs to Allen certainly,” he agreed, “but the playhouse itself was built by the Burbages. It belongs to them, therefore, every timber.” This was the flaw he had so cleverly spotted in the lease.

  “He’ll take you to court,” Ducket protested.

  “I agree,” Edmund said cheerfully. “But we think we shall win.”

  “Where the devil is Allen now?” Ducket demanded.

  “I do not know,” Edmund shrugged. In fact, he knew very well that the merchant and his family had left to visit friends in the West Country two days before.

  “I’ll soon put a stop to this,” Ducket fumed.

  “Indeed?” Edmund seemed interested. “On what authority, though?”

  “As an alderman of London!” Ducket shouted.

  “But, sir,” Edmund gestured around, “surely you forget. This is Shoreditch. We are not in London.” He bowed politely. “You have no authority here.” It was, he often thought afterwards, one of the happiest moments of his life.

  By midday, half of the upper gallery had been taken down and the stage had been loaded into carts. Ducket had returned with some workmen to stop them and Meredith had forced them to retire by threatening to charge them with causing an affray and disturbing the king’s peace. By dusk they were starting on the lower gallery and no one was bothering to molest them. As a precaution, however, the men took turns posting a watch by the entrance all night, while Cuthbert Carpenter gleefully kept a small bonfire going in the pit so that they could warm themselves.

  By New Year’s Day, the Theatre at Shoreditch had gone.

  The operation was not only daring; it was also necessary. Even without the financial problems caused by the Blackfriars failure, the would-be theatre builder faced one huge problem: the price of wood. It was not surprising. In less than a century London’s population had quadrupled and the demand for timber was huge. Above all, the mighty timber of the slow-growing oak, which was needed for a structure to support a boisterous crowd, was at a tremendous premium. The handsome oak-timbered buildings of the Elizabethans were a tribute to their wealth. The huge load of oak that the Burbages now carted away from Shoreditch was worth a fortune.

  The site selected by the Burbages for the new theatre was excellent. Occupying a piece of open ground on Bankside, it was in the Liberty of the Clink, but was set apart from the nearby brothels. It enjoyed easy access to the river so that respectable citizens could arrive by barge at the river steps without encountering anything that would offend them. But though the negotiations with the owner of the land were almost complete, the contract was still not signed. It would be necessary to store the timber somewhere for a week or two. There was also one other little difficulty to be avoided.

  However angry he might be, Alderman Ducket was a cautious man. He had taken careful advice before he set his trap. The document he intended to use as his authority was signed by several aldermen. The twenty men who would take over the carts were discreetly out of sight. Fortune was also clearly on his side, for his spies had discovered that the Burbages had stupidly decided to move all the heaviest and most valuable oak timbers at the same time. Ten large wagons had been hired.

  “When they reach the bridge, they will have to stop to pay the toll. That’s when we strike,” he explained to his fellow aldermen. “No one can question our authority because they’ll be in the city. My men will take over the wagons and we’ll impound all the timber on the grounds of suspected theft of property.” He grinned. “When Giles Allen returns, the matter can go to court.”

  “What if Meredith is right, and they win?” one of the aldermen asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. The case could drag on for years,” Ducket pointed out. “Meanwhile,” he smiled, “no timber, no theatre. I expect they’ll be ruined.”

  Now, on the last day of the year, he waited patiently by the bridge. It was mid-morning and the wagons were coming.

  The procession of wagons approached Bishopsgate at a leisurely pace. Edmund sat in the first one. As he scanned the lane in front of him, he saw nothing suspicious. Even the old fortified gateway into the city looked unoccupied, inviting. From there the street would lead them easily towards the bridge. He smiled.

  Just before the gate the first wagon unexpectedly turned left. A few moments later, it was following the lane that led round outside the city wall and ditch. The other wagons followed. Five minutes later, with the Tower some hundreds of yards away on their right, they were bumping along a frozen track that, crossing open ground, led towards the river.

  From the entrance to London Bridge, the frozen Thames presented a cheerful sight. Just upstream, some enterprising traders had erected stalls on the ice to make a little fair. Already there were braziers roasting nuts and sweetmeats. Beyond that, opposite Bankside, a huge area had been cleared and parties of youths and children were skating or sliding about. Puritan though he was, Alderman Ducket had no objection to these harmless pastimes and he looked at them with approval.

  But then he frowned. Where the devil were those carts? They should have been there by now. Had some fool at the gate held them up? He was tempted to walk up towards Bishopsgate to see; but checked himself. A few more minutes passed. And then he happened to glance downstream.

  The ten wagons were all on the ice now; they were several hundred yards beyond the Tower, but even on that grey morning, he could make out every detail. He could even see Meredith sitting in the first cart. For a long moment he watched them, speechless. It occurred to him that, perhaps, the ice would give way. Meredith might even be drowned. But the wagons continued.

  Shortly afterwards, they pulled up at John Dogget’s boat repair yard where Meredith had arranged for the timber to be stored. From the bridge, the alderman helplessly watched them unload.

  1599

  On 21 February 1599, in the city of London, a document was signed which, by good fortune, has been preserved. It was quite modest: a simple lease under which a certain Nicholas Brend, owner of a piece of ground on Bankside, granted the right to build and operate a playhouse thereon. It had one unusual feature: the lessee was not a single party but a group of people, and the lease carefully set out the legal share held by each of them. Half the lease was split between the two Burbage brothers; the other half divided equally between five members of the Chamberlain’s company. One of these was William Shakespeare. The new theatre was being owned and operated by a company. Since the term “shareholder” had not yet been coined, a more domestic word was employed. Shakespeare and his fellow investors were known as “the householders”. The jointly owned theatre was also to be given a new name. They decided to call it the Globe.

  Cuthbert Carpenter knew what
his grandmother thought, because he felt duty bound to visit her and his sister once a week. Bankside was Sodom and Gomorrah; the playhouse, the Temple of Moloch. But if, as his grandmother believed, God had already predestined him for hellfire, then there was nothing he could do about it anyway. So he worked on the Temple of Moloch with a will, and was happier than he had ever been in his life.

  The Globe theatre was a handsome structure. A huge open drum with an external diameter of over eighty feet, it was not strictly speaking round but, like the other playhouses, polygonal, with nearly twenty sides. In the centre was a large pit and around it, three tiers of galleries. The stage was big, and at its rear was a flat wall with two doorways, one on the left, one on the right, through which the actors made their exits and entrances. Behind the doors lay the tiring house. Above the line of the doors and stretching across the back of the stage was a minstrels’ gallery. It was also known, however, as the Lords’ Room. For when no music was required during the performance, the fashionable folk liked to sit up there, so that they could both watch the play and be admired by the audience as well.

  High over the rear part of the stage was a wooden canopy, supported on stage by two stout pillars at its front corners. The ceiling of the canopy, when completed and painted with stars would be known as “Heavens”. Most amusing of all, to Cuthbert, was the special pulley and harness that would be used when one of the actors needed to fly over the stage.

  Finally, over the roofline behind the stage, there was a turret from which, on play days, a man would sound a trumpet to let all London know that a performance was about to begin.

  And so, through March, April, and into May, Cuthbert Carpenter laboured as the new Globe grew, until at last even its great thatched roof was finished, and the painters started to decorate its outside walls with fake windows, classical pediments and niches, so that it looked like a bright little simulacrum of a Roman amphitheatre. And sometimes, when he visited his grandmother and she asked him sharply where he had been, he would confuse her by declaring:

  “I was in the Lords’ Room today. And I think, grandmother, that I saw the Heavens as well.”

  As the Globe neared completion, the whole company felt a growing excitement. All London knew about the daring move across the river. As expected, Giles Allen had started legal proceedings over the removal of the structure, but this had only increased popular interest. Every playgoer in London was delighted to see the Chamberlain’s men make fools of the killjoy aldermen. The royal court was said to be highly amused. Even the rival Admiral’s men agreed: “You struck a blow for all of us.”

  As for the building itself and its site, the company was satisfied that it had chosen well. The only disadvantage anyone could think of – and it was a small problem – concerned the access.

  In order to reach the new Globe on foot, unless one lived in Southwark, it was necessary to walk over London Bridge. For those coming from the eastern part of the city, this was the direct route anyway; but for those coming from the western side, or the Inns of Court area, it meant either a tedious detour to the bridge, or the expense of a ferry – and even a party of eight would still have to pay sixpence for a wherry big enough to carry them all. “We may lose some of the young lawyers,” Fleming remarked to Jane; but with so many other arrangements to be made, no one had time to worry much about this minor matter.

  For the Fleming family, the new arrangements meant a move, and during April Jane’s father began negotiating with several landlords to secure suitable lodgings near to the Globe, but not too close to the whorehouses.

  One afternoon early in May, on her way back from inspecting a little house her father was interested in, Jane encountered John Dogget; and since neither of them were busy just then, they went to the George together.

  He was his usual cheerful self. Though they had seen less of each other since the previous autumn, he seemed delighted to be with her. When she told him about the family’s forthcoming move to Southwark, he gave her a friendly smile and remarked: “You’ll be living near us then. I’m so glad.” And she realized that she was glad as well. Indeed, the time in his company went so easily that she hardly noticed that an hour and then two had passed. It was, indeed, only a chance remark of hers that brought it to an end, when, discussing the new Globe, she happened to mention the problem of the costly ferry crossing. For after asking her to go over it again, and pausing thoughtfully for nearly a minute, Dogget’s face suddenly lit up with a huge grin. “Come with me. I’ve something to show you,” he said.

  The sun was already starting to sink, sending red shafts along the river, when they reached the Dogget yard. With surprise, Jane watched while he dragged planks and timbers away from the back of the boathouse. He lit two lamps, hung them from a beam and commanded her: “Turn your back.” She heard him pulling covers off something, while she stared out at the red sky above the water, then his voice said: “You can look now.” And to her astonishment, she saw the long, gleaming and magnificently gilded form of Dogget’s secret treasure. He beamed at her.

  “Could we use this? To ferry people to the Globe?”

  He had at last found a role worthy of King Harry’s barge.

  “We could take thirty. She wouldn’t sink,” he said.

  For another half-hour they tested it, sitting this way and that, laughing happily like a pair of childish conspirators.

  It was dusk when he offered to escort her home.

  The play was done.

  It was Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice that had given him the idea originally. A rogue tries to do a great evil, but the forces of good triumph. Simple enough. But what had especially struck Edmund was that the villain in the play was an outcast, and a striking presence. That was what he needed: a villain who was unusual, memorable, threatening not just because of what he does, but what he is. Someone mysterious. But what? A Jesuit priest? A Spaniard? Too obvious. He had racked his brains for something original, and then suddenly he had remembered the strange fellow who had threatened him at the bear-pit two years before: Black Barnikel, the pirate.

  A blackamoor. The pirate moor. What could be stranger, more threatening? The audience wouldn’t be able to take their eyes off him.

  He made the Moor loathsome, hideous. As terrible as Tamburlaine, cunning as Mephistopheles. His speeches and monologues were magnificent as awful images of evil came spilling out. There was not one redeeming feature in him. At last however, caught in his own toils, he was brought to justice and, after showing himself to be a coward as well, was led away, contemptibly, to execution. When he finally put down his pen, Meredith felt certain: now he would make a figure in the world.

  He decided that afternoon to go out. And then he decided to do something he had not done for a long time. He put on his galligaskins, and a white lace ruff, and his hat with the billowing feathers.

  Dusk had fallen before Edmund and the lady crossed the bridge. She was being carried by two servants in a covered chair: he was walking beside it, gallantly carrying a lamp to light the way. They had met at a play given by the Admiral’s men and then retired to sup with a party of other fashionable folk at a nearby tavern. Until that day, Edmund had only known his companion slightly, as a friend of Lady Redlynch; but it seemed that he was known to her since, noticing him in the playhouse gallery, she had turned and archly remarked: “I see, Master Meredith, you have dressed as a gentleman again.” And whatever she might have heard of him from Lady Redlynch, it was enough, evidently, for her to make it clear to him that evening that his place was at her side.

  They had just paused for a moment about a hundred yards north of the bridge when John Dogget and Jane, returning from the boathouse, came in sight of them.

  Had they not paused, had Edmund not leaned forward into the covered chair, Jane might not have realized who it was. But in doing so, he held the lamp up to his face. There was no mistaking it. Even from the distance, in the little pool of lamplight, she could see them both: Edmund, his handsome, aristocratic face
, half shadowed; the lady, a painted beauty, saying something to him which made him laugh. She saw the lady put her hand out and take his. For a moment, she thought Edmund might draw back. But he did not. She stopped.

  It was the same thing, all over again. Nothing had changed. She knew it, with a sudden sickness, in her heart.

  At her side, Dogget had not realized whom she had seen and was still chatting happily. She forced herself to walk forward. Dogget was rather surprised when, as they walked, she took hold of his hand.

  They were still fifty yards away when Edmund glanced back and saw them. With the lamp still close to his eyes, he would not have recognized them in the dusk if it had not been for the white flash in Dogget’s hair. Staring for a brief moment, he saw from her walk that the figure beside him must be Jane.

  For a moment he hesitated. He knew the two were friends. Could there be something more that he did not know about? Could they even – the thought flashed across his mind – be lovers? No, he decided. That was absurd. Little Jane would never do such a thing. Dogget was just walking her home, quite innocently. Yet what was he himself doing? Would he be parting from this lady at her door?

  He almost went over to them. But then he did not. After all, it might seem as if he was anxious about them: that would be beneath his dignity. As for reassuring Jane – the hypocrisy of the gesture secretly embarrassed him, since he might well spend the night in the lady’s arms. No. Let her think what she liked. A fine fellow like himself should do as he pleased. Besides, she might not have recognized him.

  A moment later, the lady and Edmund had turned westward across the city, and Dogget and Jane continued northwards.

  The little procession that crossed London Bridge one bright noon a week later had a festive air. In the first wagon, filled with costumes, rode Fleming and his son. In the second, his wife presided. The third vehicle was an open cart full of props. Cuthbert Carpenter was perched on top of that to make sure that nothing fell out. In the fourth cart, also full of props, rode Jane, and in the fifth, Dogget.