Of Stake and Stage

Summary

When I’se come there, I was in a rage,

I rayl’d on him that kept the Beares,

Instead of a Stake was suffered a Stage

And in Hunkes his house a crue of Players.

A North Country Song

So goes the lament of a North Country balladeer describing his disappointment when, on visiting the Bear Garden (the popular cognomen for both Paris Garden and its successor the Hope Theatre), he was cheated of his expected entertainment and shown a play instead. All through the reigns of Elizabeth and James bear-baiting competed vigorously with the drama for the purse and applause of both prince and people, and a pre-eminent symbol of that competition may be found in the building, set on the Bankside near the Globe, formally titled the Hope Theatre, but

commonly called the Beare Garden, a Play House for Stage Playes on Mundayes, Wedensdayes, Fridayes, and Saterdayes, and for the baiting of the Beares on Tuesdayes and Thursdayes, the stage being made to take vp and downe when they please.

So closely were the two entertainments linked that an investigation into the financing of the theatre in Shakespeare's time inevitably becomes involved with an inquiry into the finances of bear-baiting. Peculiarly significant is the fact that the man responsible for the tormenting of the ballad-writer's bear Hunkes was none other than the great Edward Alleyn, who won early fame as Kyd's Hieronimo and Marlowe's Tamburlaine and who later made a considerable fortune in property dealings on the Bankside where he financed the building of both the Fortune Theatre and the 'Bear Garden'-Hope.