In-depth
The Cockpit-at-Court allows us to see a link between the public stage and the activities of the court. Records show that in the Jacobean period the cockfighting space was used for the performance of various plays but in the Caroline period greater plans were put into place. As chief court architect Inigo Jones was asked to redesign the space as a theatre (he had previously built the Jacobean Banqueting House). The new theatre opened for plays in November 1630 and the indoor playhouse was meant to allow the leading companies to perform their publically staged narrative tales for an exclusive courtly audience. It was designed with a dais with private access up a special stairway, so that the king and queen could sit confronting the stage, his courtiers and ambassadors all round him.
As an indoor theatre, the Cockpit-at-Court staged numerous dramatic works for the king, including some of the old classics by Marlowe, Heywood, Fletcher, Jonson, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Massinger and Dekker. This activity continued until 1642 when playing ceased at all theatres owing to the outbreak of war.