Cuthbert Burbage

Cuthbert Burbage (1566 – 1636) was an English theatrical figure, son of impresario James Burbage and elder brother of famous actor Richard Burbage. Most famous for his central role in the construction of the Globe Theatre, he was for four decades a significant agent in the success and endurance of Shakespeare's company, the King's Men.

Burbage was born in Coleman Street near Guildhall, London. His father bound him as servant to Walter Cope, gentleman usher to Burghley. As an adult, he joined the family business, then centered at The Theatre in Shoreditch. In 1586, his father's erstwhile partner John Brayne died, leading to a complex legal battle over Brayne's share in the Theatre. Brayne's widow wanted her share, as did John Hyde, a wealthy grocer who owned the mortgage on the theater. In 1589, Cuthbert settled this issue by paying Hyde for the mortgage (with it he offered a letter from Cope promising that Cope would help Hyde if need arose.) This move, an attempt to cut Brayne's widow out of her legacy, led first to a chancery suit and then to physical confrontation. Margaret Brayne and an associate, Robert Myles, visited Burbage's house, only to be threatened and driven away. They visited the Theatre, where a teenaged Richard Burbage allegedly beat Myles with a broom handle. The widow died in 1593, the case still unsettled. Myles later attempted to reach a compromise which would have made him a partner with Cuthbert; however, he desisted by 1597.

Cuthbert was also left to execute the more serious matter of finding the Lord Chamberlain's Men a new home after the lease of the Theatre expired. When James died, there were two months left on the 21 year lease he had taken on the land under the Theater. This lease passed to Cuthbert, who fought to get it renewed by the owner of the land, Giles Alleyn. James Burbage's attempt to bring his company to the Blackfriars Theatre had been stymied by opposition from Blackfriars' wealthy residents; Burbage and company were faced with an imminent crisis.

After a last futile attempt to renew the lease, Burbage took action. The lease gave him the right to use the framing timber of the Theatre, if he did so before the expiration of the lease. When he did not do so, Alleyn announced his intention to use the timber for his own purposes. Looking for a place for his new Theater, he made a verbal agreement with Nicolas Brend for lease on a stretch of land on Maid Lane in Bankside, near Philip Henslowe's Rose Theatre. Burbage hired Peter Streete to take down the old Theatre and to build the new one from as much of the salvaged material as possible. On the night of December 28, 1598, Cuthbert, Richard, a certain William Smith "of Waltham Cross, in the County of Hartford, gentleman", Streete, and twelve others took down the Theater, carried all the wood and timber across the River Thames. This new theatre was the Globe, which had opened by September 1599. (The Chamberlain's Men, in the interim, appear to have performed at the Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch).

The Globe provided a stable home for the Chamberlain's Men and its successor, the King's Men, for the next four decades. As significant, Cuthbert and his brother had financed the new venue by making five actors (William Shakespeare, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, and William Kempe) as a group, half-sharers in the profits of the house: this arrangement seems to have solidified the structure of the group, helping cement the position of the Chamberlain's Men as the preeminent troupe in London.

Burbage remained one of the keepers of the Globe until his death in 1636, and the position appears to have been lucrative for him; he lived in a house in a fashionable district, St Giles Cripplegate, and owned another estate in Middlesex.

References

• Nunzeger, Edwin. A Dictionary of Actors and of Other Persons Associated With the Public Presentation of Plays in England Before 1642. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1929.
• Smith, Irwin. Shakespeare's Globe Playhouse. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1956.