The Fortune, one of the period’s largest and most successful playhouses, was built in 1600, burned down in 1621, rebuilt the following year and remained in business through 1642 when parliament officially banned public playing. Owned and operated for much of its first two decades by actor/manager, Edward Alleyn and his father-in-law, Philip Henslowe, the Fortune was home to the company that rivaled Shakespeare’s, the Lord Admiral’s Men, and were subsequently patronized by the royal family. This company performed plays at the Fortune by Marlowe, Middleton, Jonson and others. They created a sensation in 1611 with the staging of The Roaring Girl, when the real Marion Frith, a cross-dressed pickpurse on which the play’s heroine was based, showed up at the Fortune to perform with her lute.
The Fortune was located in St. Giles Without Cripplegate, a large suburban parish of about 7000 residents in 1600. At that time it was rapidly increasing in population and marked by an uneven mix of nobleman’s mansions, tradesmen’s households, almshouses for the poor and numerous inns, breweries, print shops and other businesses, many of which profited from (and offered services and supplies to) the large commercial theater. The Fortune was a major site in the parish, along with the famous parish church of St. Giles to the south, the opulent Barbican estate to its southwest and Finsbury manor court to the east of the district. Alleyn established close ties to the parish by befriending the vicar, Lancelot Andrews, donating weekly sums for poor relief and maintaining almshouses. He earned the support of the inhabitants in the county part of the parish where the Fortune was located, with twenty-eight of them, most of them tradespeople, petitioning the crown to issue a license for the playhouse in 1600. More players are known to have lived in St. Giles Without than in any other parish: at least fifty of them from the period, along with family members, show up in the baptism, marriage, and burial records; about twenty resided on Golding Lane or Whitecross Street next to the Fortune.
An abundance of records survive to research the Fortune district, including the accounts of St. Giles Without Cripplegate parish, lay subsidy rolls, property deeds, inhabitants’ wills, the diaries of Edward Alleyn and Philip Henslowe, among others. Also noteworthy is that property lines from the period survive mainly in tact on the Restoration-era maps of Olgiby and Morgan, so that we can identify the locations of many residences, businesses and notable landmarks in the district.
