On this day in Tudor history, 25th July 1602, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, thirteen-year-old actor Salomon Pavy was buried at the Church of St Mary Somerset, near Blackfriars Theatre.
It is thought that Salomon was abducted to serve as an actor in the Children of Paul's, for in 1601 when four men were accused of abducting another boy to serve as an actor, the name "Salmon Pavey, apprentice" was mentioned as a past abductee.
Salomon later joined the Children of the Queen's Revels at the Blackfriars Theatre and had parts in plays by Ben Jonson.
Ben Jonson composed an epitaph in his honour:
Yet three filled Zodiacs had he been
The stages jewel;
And did act (what now we moan)
Old men so duly,
As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one,
He played so truly.
Also on this day in Tudor history...
Image: “Blackfriars Theatre: Conjectural Reconstruction” by G. Topham Forrest, The Times, 21 November 1921, p. 5.
Drawing of the second Blackfriars Theatre according to legal descriptions of the times.
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