Not content with omitting James Barry from the Barry pedigree, Lodge must needs kill off his brother David prematurely, blunders which have been religiously perpetuated by succeeding compilers of aristocratic genealogies. We are told by him that David "married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard, Lord Poer, and, dying before his father, left her with child, "26-a statement admitting of the deduction that his death occurred in 1604 or 1605. If this were true one might give up all hopes of identifying the author of Ram Alley, but the fact is there is absolutely no authority for the statement. Lodge has plainly drawn an unwarrantable inference from the passage in the Indenture Inquisition taken at Youghal on March 31, 1624 and preserved in the Irish Record Office, which says, not that David Oge's child was born posthumously, but simply that David Oge died in the lifetime of his father.27 As we have seen, his father did not die until 1617.

Lodge's misstatement has even deceived the usually careful Father Barry, who echoes it in saying that "his [David Oge's] son, however, in the reign of James the First, being posthumous, was a ward of Chancery from his birth, and as such was brought up in the state religion. ""28

If David Oge Barry died not later than 1605 we should find some record of the granting of the wardship of his son and heir within the ensuing twelve months. But as a matter of fact no trace of any such grant occurs until six years later. This effectually negatives the assumption of posthumous birth. Among the Irish State papers is a letter from Elenor, Countess of Ormond and Ossory, to Lord Salisbury, dated March 10, 1611 (i.e., 1610-11). I quote the official summary of the contents.

She and her father had lately obtained the wardship of her nephew, David Barry, grandchild of her father, Lord Barry, but the Lord Deputy had prevented this and had passed the wardship to one of his own kinsmen, whose authority she

This would throw his birth to February 10, 1605, a slight discrepancy and cvidently wrong. The statement in Cal. Stale Papers, Ireland, 1611-1614, p. 459 that David Fitz David Barry was thirteen years old in 1613 is obviously astray. Another list, calendared under 1615 in the vol. for 1615-1625, p. 83, also gives his age as thirteen. The chances are that both lists are misplaced, being undated. 26 Peerage of Ireland, I, 295. Burke, in his Extinct and Dormant Peerages, repeats the blunder, and has misled the D. N. B., sub nomine, 'David Fitz David Barry, 1st Lord Barrymore.'

27 Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, VI, (1900), 85-6, 'Barrymore.'

28 Ibid., VI, 199.

P

doubts since no lands descended to her said nephew by the death of his father or of his uncle, whereby the infant's wardship might be in the Lord Deputy's disposition. She begs a letter to the Deputy ordering him to pass the wardship."

A little earlier Lord Danvers had written to Salisbury maintaining that Lord Barry was an unfit person to have the wardship of his grandchild, possibly because he was a Roman Catholic.30 It may be that some such consideration led to the cancellation of the original grant and the bestowal upon an outsider of the wardship of the child. Among the Chancery enrolments in the Irish Record Office I find the ensuing two items under 8 James I, (1611):

(1) King's letter to Chichester, the Lord Deputy, granting Viscount Buttevant and his daughter, Elenor, Countess of Ormond the wardship of David Fitz David Barry, son of David Barry deceased. Dated “the 3rd day of April in the 8th year of my reign." No previous wardship is recited or annulled, both of which courses would have been requisite had any such existed. (English)

(2) 14 April 8 Jac I. Grant to John Chichester Esq of the wardship of David Barry, son and heir of David Oge Barry deceased, son and heir apparent, while he lived, of David, now Lord Barry, Viscount Buttevant, for a fine of 5 1. and an annual rent of 3 1. English, retaining 30s. English there out for his maintenance and education (Latin).

When, then, did David Oge Barry die? Presumably within a period of about six months prior to the granting of the original wardship of his son. Note that while the Whitefriar's venture collapsed in 1608, it was not until November 9, 1610 that Ram Alley was entered on the Stationers' Registers for publication. Does it not appear as if the possessor of the prompt copy, say Martin Slater, took advantage of the recent death of the author to sell the play to a publisher? On that showing Lording alias David Oge Barry died in October 1610. He was very young, hardly more than twenty-four; and, whether or no the call came hurriedly, he left no will. For all his youth there is little reason to doubt he was the real Simon Pure. One puzzle, however, remains to be solved. Ram Alley evinces on the part of its author an intimate acquaintanceship with legal procedure and with life in the Inns of Court. Whence all this specialised knowledge? Deep as I have delved I cannot find that David Oge Barry ate his terms at the Bar. Nor is it likely that as the heir apparent to an Irish viscounty he would have thought of following the legal profession.

29 Cal. State Papers, Ireland, 1611-4, 24.

30 Ibid.

"My thanks are due to Mr. F. W. X. Fincham, superintendent of the Department for Literary Enquiry, Principal Probate Registry, Somerset House, whose searches from 1604 to 1629 failed to be rewarded by the finding of any will.

A PLAN OF THE CONVENTUAL BUILDINGS AT THE TIME OF THE

DISSOLUTION.

(Farrant's Theatre, 24; Shakespeare's Theatre, 26 and 27.)

THE CONVENTUAL BUILDINGS OF BLACKFRIARS, LON

DON, AND THE PLAYHOUSES CON

STRUCTED THEREIN

BY JOSEPH QUINCY ADAMS

In 1911 students of the Elizabethan drama were startled by the announcement of the discovery of important documents among the Loseley Manuscripts proving the existence of an early Blackfriars playhouse once owned by John Lyly, and supplying many new details about the later Blackfriars theatre associated with Shakespeare. In 1913 M. Feuillerat, whose indefatigable labors have won the gratitude of all Elizabethan scholars, published a selection of these documents, under the title Blackfriars Records, for The Malone Society. But these documents are very puzzling, consisting as they do of unconnected grants, surveys, and leases of scattered property, and extending over a period of a hundred years. The task yet remains correctly to interpret and articulate all these documents in order that we may gain a more exact knowledge of the two Blackfriars theatres-buildings which played an exceedingly interesting and important part in the history of English literature.

In the following essay I have attempted to reconstruct the ancient Dominican Priory, and then to point out the precise locationwith size, shape, and other details of the two playhouses which were at several times established within the conventual buildings. The only previous attempt to reconstruct the priory, made by Mr. Alfred . W. Clapham in an article entitled On the Topography of the Dominican Priory of London, printed in Archaeologia, 1912, is demonstrably wrong in virtually every feature. This is mainly due to the fact that Mr. Clapham wrote in ignorance of the Loseley documents. I cannot hope that the present reconstruction, made in the light of these documents, is correct in every detail; but that it is substantially correct in all important features will be evident, I think, from a careful examination of the miscellaneous documents now happily available to scholars.2

'It does not fall within the province of this paper to discuss the question as to who first made this discovery. It was first announced by M. Albert Feuillerat, of Rennes, in The Daily Chronicle, London, December 22, 1911. For the regrettable controversy between Mr. C. W. Wallace and M. Feuillerat over the credit for the discovery, see The Athenæum, November 2, 1912, and the following issues.

"These documents may be found in the following works: Albert Feuillerat, Blackfriars Records, in The Malone Society's Collections, 1913 (in the present

I. THE CONVENTUAL BUILDINGS

[The numbers prefixed refer to corresponding numbers on the accompanying plan of the priory.]

1. The Preaching Nave of the church was 66 feet wide (9. 7),3 approximately 120 feet long, with two aisles (9. 3; 10. 16), and, if we may trust Wyngaerde's View of London, five bays.

2. The Chancel, or choir, was 44 feet wide (110. 40), approximately 80 feet long, and was separated from the Nave by the Belfry and a passage leading into the Great Cloister. No aisles are referred to as existing in the Chancel.

3. The Belfry, situated between the Chancel and the Nave, seems to have been 20 feet wide (111. 40) and to have extended the entire breadth of the church (110. 34-6; 111. 1, 35-40). Through it ran the Entry, perpetuated in modern London by the alley known as Church Entry. The Entry led from the Great Cloister into the churchyard, and thence into the city.

Thus the entire length of the church-Nave, Chancel, and Belfry-was 220 feet (9. 12).

4. The Chapel was situated "on the north side of the said church" (9. 33), adjoining the Chancel (110. 29 ff.), and "annexed" to the Vestry at the east end of the Chancel (110. 35). Its dimensions are not given; but the Vestry was 22 feet in width, and, in all probability, this was the width of the Chapel also.

essay the citations in parentheses are to the pages and lines of this volume); Charles William Wallace, The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars, 1908, Shakespeare and His London Associates, 1910, The Evolution of the English Drama up to Shakespeare, 1912; The Seventh Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 1879, Appendix, pp. 596-680; Alfred J. Kempe, The Loseley Manuscripts, 1836; F. G. Fleay, A Chronicle History of the London Stage, 1890, containing the Greenstreet documents, pp. 127 ff., 208 ff.; James Greenstreet, The Blackfriars Playhouse: Its Antecedents, in The Athenæum, July 17, 1886, p. 91; Alfred W. Clapham, On the Topography of the Dominican Priory of London, in Archaeologia, 1912, reprinted in part in Clapham and Godfrey's Some Famous Buildings and their Story, 1913; The Victoria History of London, 1909, vol. 1, p. 498; Sir Walter Besant, Mediaeval London, 1906, vol. ii, p. 407; Charles R. B. Barrett, The History of the Society of Apothecaries of London, 1905; Palmer, C. F. R., Burials at the Priories of the Blackfriars, in The Antiquary, xxiii, 122, xxiv, 28, 76.

The numbers in parentheses refer to the pages and lines in Feuillerat's Blackfriars Records, printed in The Malone Society's Collections, 1913.

4

The Antiquary, xxiv, 76, 79; quoted in Archaeologia, 1912, p. 66.