Cross Keys Inn (London)

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The Cross Keys Inn (also Crosse Key (e) s Inn) was an inn on Gracechurch Street in London and one of the first venues of the Elizabethan Theater , in which the ensemble around William Shakespeare also played.

Buildings

A description of the inn, newly built under the same name after the Great Fire of London in 1666, assumes the same dimensions as the first Cross Keys Inn of 43 meters in length - standing at right angles to Gracechurch Street - and 24.5 m in width at its rear end, while the front on the street was only 10 meters. The inn had an inner courtyard about 15 meters long in east-west length and almost 10 m wide in north-south dimensions. It is considered unsecured, but the Cross Keys could have been multi-story like similarly large inns of the time, such as the Bell Savage Inn or The George Inn .

The name is derived from the (crossed) key Petri , a Christian symbol.

history

The Cross Keys Inn had been owned by the College of Pontefract in Yorkshire since 1407 but was opened by Edward VI in 1548. confiscated under the Second Chantries Act when it had all collegiate churches dissolved. The former and present location of the Inn is diagonally opposite the entrance to Leadenhall Market ; this is also indicated by an attached sticker .

Belt maker John Layston from Kent bought some properties in London, including the Cross Keyes Inn. Richard Ibbotson (1527–1584), a London citizen and brewer, succeeded the previous operator, Christopher Clifford, as the tenant and operator in 1564. Layston died in 1571 and his second wife Alice (née Poore and also from Kent) took over his inheritance. She remained the owner of the Cross Keys Inn until her death on July 9 (or 10), 1590. However, after the takeover, she found herself exposed to bitter inheritance disputes initiated by the relatives of the first wife, as well as the brother of her late husband, Robert Layston. These disputes were to be repeated from 1584 with Robert's son William, who was appointed heir to the Cross Keys, but wanted the inn while Alice was still alive. At the same time, she had to worry about her mentally handicapped son from her first marriage at her home on Lombard Street, just a few meters away.

Under Ibbotson's direction (and the tolerance, even encouragement of Laystons), theater performances took place for the first time in the Cross Keys Inn. The year 1579 is secured here, as the impresario James Burbage and builder of the first theater in London (after Roman times) on June 23 of the year when he wanted to attend a play at the Cross Key Inn at around two in the afternoon, as a result of a private lawsuit was arrested against him. Ibbotson became quite wealthy through his business idea and successful economy. After his death, his widow Emma managed the business, but passed it on to Edward Walker , a London upholsterer with experience in gastronomy and possibly theater, and an acquaintance of her husband's. Alice Layston set up a new lease for a term of 40 years for a rent of £ 24 a year , starting on March 25, 1585. When Alice's son John died prematurely, it was an unclear passage in John's father's will (Alice first husband ), which called windy businessmen on the scene, who now made agreements with John's brother Henry about the lands to be inherited in Kent. Edward Walker, the current tenant of the Cross Keys Inn, was among them. This led to a falling out with Alice Layston, and Walker was followed on January 6, 1588 by John Franklin, Londoner and draper. He found that the inn was in a shabby state and subsequently undertook extensive and costly renovations and conversions. For example, paneling, glass, benches (with high backrests) and metalwork were renewed or used.

On November 5, 1589, the Lord Mayor of London ordered that the theater company Lord Strange's Men was banned from performing in the city because of their participation in the Marprelate controversy . However, the same afternoon, this opposed this instruction with an appearance at the Cross Keys Inn. The mayor complained about this to the Privy Council .

“The Lord Admiral's players obeyed very dutifully, but the Lord Strange's players walked away from me very contemptuously, went to the Crosse Keys and played that afternoon, to the great annoyance of the better kind who knew it was on my orders was forbidden. "

The Cross Keys Inn subsequently became one of the preferred venues for Lord Strange's Men.

When Alice Layston died on July 9 or 10, 1590, the Cross Keys came into the possession of her nephew William due to the contracts that had been won at the beginning of the takeover. John Franklin's lease for the Cross Keys had also expired automatically. However, Franklin assumed that he would receive a new lease from William Layston and asked his brother George to negotiate this with the new owner. They eventually agreed to a 21 year lease from Michaelmas Day (traditionally a popular date for ongoing rent, lease or interest payments) 1590 for a rent of £ 40 annually, on the same terms as Richard Ibbotson's lease from Alice Layston. Franklin was to pay £ 200 one time at the start of the lease, £ 100 straight away and £ 100 due at Christmas. However, when Franklin tried to bring the £ 100 to the Cross Keys Inn on September 28, the day before Michaelmas Day, William Layston was nowhere to be found. Layston no longer intended to sign a lease with Franklin. But he could not be persuaded to leave the inn. He also opposed a lawsuit for eviction by Layston in court and asserted his large expenses, which he put into the house as well as the supplies he had bought for the coming winter. Franklin also complained about the notice letters Layston had posted in front of the Cross Keys that "bothered and disturbed" guests. It was finally agreed on an extract for March 25th ("Lady Day") of the following year, so that Franklin could still use up the supplies he had already bought.

After John Franklin left the Cross Keys for good, William Layston began leasing them to a rather unusual person. James Beare, who until recently had been a sailor and privateer by profession , had captured and towed two Spanish ships, the St. John Baptist and the Gallego , together with his crew 12 years earlier in October 1589 and provided with a royal letter of promise in the port of Dartmouth ( Devonshire ). The ships had loaded expensive silks, animal skins, carmine (red dye), plates and bars of precious metal valued at £ 30,000. James Beare was tasked with overseeing the discharge, sharing the profits fairly, and paying the necessary duties and shares to the authorities. He probably knew the owner of the Cross Key from his youth and thus signed a lease agreement with him on May 25, 1591. The play, which ran under Franklin in the Cross Keys, was apparently continued. Because on October 8, 1594, the incumbent Lord Chamberlain of the Household Henry Carey wrote to Lord Mayor Richard Martin:

“Where my now company of players have been accustomed for the better exercise of their quality, and for the service of her majesty if need so require, to play this winter time within the City at the Cross Keys in Gracious Street; these are to require and pray your lordship […] to permit and suffer them so to do. "

"Where my present-day society of actors is accustomed to exercising their qualities better and serving Her Majesty if necessary to play this winter time in town at the Cross Keys on Gracious Street; They asked their Lordship [...] to allow and tolerate this. "

- Herbert Berry: Shakespeare's Playhouses New York 1987, p. 20 online

He also assured Martin that the players would not let the spectators in until two in the afternoon and play between four and five; that they would not use drums or trumpets and that the audience would not be allowed to shout loudly at the actors during the performance; they would also consider the poor in the community.

The Lord Mayor and the London City Council have always been hostile to actors and theatrical productions and viewed them as breeding grounds for crime and civil unrest. They made repeated attempts to suppress all theatrical activities within their jurisdiction. In 1596 William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham was appointed Lord Chamberlain. Cobham was a friend of the London City Council and also an opponent of drama; under his influence, the Privy Council agreed to a ban on theatrical acting within the City of London . In addition, all existing theaters within the city ​​wall were closed and demolished (theater owners such as Burbage and Philip Henslowe wisely chose the location of their theaters outside). A list from 1628 lists some of the inn-yard theaters closed in 1596; however, the list is inadequate and also ambiguous. The inns listed by name and closed to theater performances (which were also threatened with demolition) also included the Cross Keys in "Gracious Street".

William Layston gradually sold some of his properties, but never the Cross Keys Inn. It was still in the possession of its descendants when it was destroyed in the London fire of 1666.

Theatrical performances

The Cross Keys Inn as a theater venue was still remembered until the end. The playwright Richard Flecknoe wrote in 1664 that actors in Queen Elizabeth's time "had set up theaters, first in town (as seen in the courtyards of Cross Keys and Bull in Grace and Bishopsgate Streets on those days), until this fanatical spirit, which then began with the stage and ended with the throne, banished them from there to the suburbs. "

Today it is not known whether the performances, as usual at Inn-Yard Theaters , took place exclusively in the cobblestone courtyard of the inn (ideally with the balconies as spectator galleries) or inside or - depending on the season and the number of spectators - both options were used.

It is considered certain that the Lord Strange's Men performed there regularly between 1589 and 1592 (under Franklin) as well as the Lord Chamberlain's Men , although it can be assumed that William Shakespeare was also active there.

The entertainment artist William Bank (e) s lived in the Belle Savage Inn and had built an arena near Gracechurch Street (then Gracious Street) in which he regularly performed with his trained horse, Marocco . In the male audience was z. The “virgin rehearsal”, for example, is popular: On command, Marocco brought chaste virgins and their opposites from the audience onto the stage. Banks is also said to have ordered his horse to drag the craziest man in the area onto the stage and Marocco is said to have performed the very popular clown Richard Tarlton , who is friends with Banks and who recently had a performance at Crosse Keyes. The truth of this story is questionable, however, since, as far as this can be reconstructed, Tarlton († 1588) died before Marocco appeared in public.

Cross Keys today

The inn, rebuilt after the fire in London, burned down in 1734 and was rebuilt. In the early 19th century it became a popular relaxation inn , handling more than 40 carriages a day. During the construction of a bank building on this site in 1851, a beam broke and killed 5 workers. At the beginning of the 1910s, the area was redeveloped and a new, larger building was built for the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (although not exactly on the site of the former Cross Key). The architect was W. Campbell Jones; the construction work was carried out by the British company Trollope & Colls (1903-1996). The bank was opened on October 22, 1913. On July 13, 1999, the restaurant chain Wetherspoon took over the house and operates a restaurant there at 9 Gracechurch Street under the name The Crosse Keys , which apart from the name and physical proximity no longer has any reference to the inn that gave it its name.

literature

  • David Kathman: Alice Layston and the Cross Keys. , Article in Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England January 1, 2009

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The dimensions are created in the 1676 map of Ogilvy and Morgan recognizable
  2. ↑ Ralph Hyde, John Fisher and Roger Cline: The A to Z of Restoration London Guildhall Library, London 1992, pages 55 and 57
  3. ^ Charles William Wallace: The First London Theater: Materials for a History, University of Nebraska Studies 13, 1913
  4. ^ David Mateer New Light on the Early History of the Theater in Shoreditch , English Literary Renaissance 36, 2006, pp. 335-375
  5. ↑ National Archives C2 / Eliz F8 / 52
  6. ↑ National Archives C2 / Eliz F8 / 52
  7. ↑ David Kathman: Alice Layston and the Cross Keys. Article in Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England January 1, 2009
  8. ^ A b Lawrence Manley, Sally-Beth MacLean: Lord Strange's Men and Their Plays in the Google Book Search
  9. ^ Edmund Kerchever Chambers: The Elizabethan Stage , Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 305 1xxxii online
  10. ^ FE Halliday : A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964 , Penguin, Baltimore 1964, p. 404 online
  11. ↑ Thornton S. Graves: Richard Rawlidge on London Playhouses , Article in Modern Philology Issue 18, No. 1 (May 1920), (University of Chicago Press), pages 41-47 online
  12. ^ Philip E. Jones, Ed .: The Fire Court , Volume I, William Clowes & Sons, London 1966, pages 39-40
  13. ↑ This refers to the anti-theater efforts of the Puritans and their achieved elimination of the monarchy from 1649 to 1660
  14. ^ Herbert Berry: Shakespeare's Playhouses New York 1987, p. 369 online
  15. ↑ Cross Keys Inn, 1578-94 Information from Shakespearean London Theaters (ShaLT)
  16. ↑ The Cross Keys Theater (Inn-Yard) on 'William Shakespeare Info'
  17. ↑ The history of today's restaurant operator
  18. ^ The Gracechurch Street elevation of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank on Historic England

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 '45.1 "  N , 0 ° 5' 5.7"  W.