Now King Henry making a Masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain
cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff,
wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being
thought at first but idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show,
it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less
than an hour the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period
of that virtuous fabrick, wherein yet nothing did perish but _wood_ and
_straw_, and a few forsaken cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on
fire, that would perhaps have broyled him, if he had not by the benefit of
a provident wit, put it out with a bottle of ale."
From a letter of Mr. John Chamberlaine to Sir Ralph Winwood, dated July 8,
1613, in which this accident is likewise mentioned, we learn that the
theatre had only two doors.[4] "The burning of the Globe or playhouse on
the Bankside on St. Peter's day cannot escape you; which fell out by a
peal of chambers, (that I know not upon what occasion were to be used in
the play,) the tampin or stopple of one of them lighting in the thatch
that covered the house, burn'd it down to the ground in less than two
hours, with a dwelling-house adjoyning; and it was a great marvaile and a
fair grace of God that the people had so little harm, having but _two
narrow doors_ to get out."
In 1613, was entered in the Stationers' books, "A doleful ballad of the
General Conflagration of the famous Theatre called the Globe.
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