Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 2).pdf/65

 carriage and behauiour in takinge vp of gentlemens childeren against theire wills and to ymploy them for players and for other misdemeanors', and it was decreed that all assurances made to him concerning the play-house or plays should be void and should be delivered up to be cancelled. Evans, however, had apparently prepared himself against this contingency by assigning his lease to his son-in-law Alexander Hawkins on 21 October 1601. This at least is one explanation of a somewhat obscure transaction. According to Evans himself, the assignment was to protect Hawkins from any risk upon the bond given to Burbadge. On the other hand, there had already been negotiations for the sale of a half interest in the undertaking to three new partners, Edward Kirkham, William Rastall, and Thomas Kendall, and it was claimed later by Kirkham that the assignment to Hawkins had been in trust to reassign a moiety to these three, in return for a contribution of capital variously stated at from £300 to £600. No such reassignment was, however, carried out. But although the lease from Burbadge was certainly not cancelled as a result of the Star Chamber decree, it probably did seem prudent that the original managers of the theatre should remain in the background for a time. Nothing more is heard of James Robinson, while the partnership between Evans and Hawkins on the one side and Kirkham, Rastall, and Kendall on the other was brought into operation under articles dated on 20 April 1602. For the observance of these Evans and Hawkins gave a bond of £200. Kirkham, Rastall, and Kendall in turn gave Evans a bond of £50 as security