But the Lord Chamberlain's Men were having theatre trouble. The lease of the land on which the Theatre stood was running out, and the landlord, Giles Alleyn, was not anxious to renew it. The players would, it seemed, have to look elsewhere for an outdoor theatre, but they were considering the possibilities of an indoor one. James Burbage, who died in February, 1597, had himself seen that the future of the drama might lie less with the popular audiences groundlings who chewed sausages and garlic and booed and spat than with those cultivated gentlemen who could appreciate a well‑turned epigram, a melodious line, and an apt classical reference. (...)

At the moment October, 1597 the Lord Chamberlain's Men felt understandably insecure. Admittedly, since James Burbage's death, Giles Alleyn had changed his tune somewhat concerning the renewal of the lease of the ground on which the Theatre stood. Probably owing to Dick Burbage's professionally persuasive powers, he had begun to hold out vague hope to the players, but he could not be induced to put anything on paper not even a signature to the new lease that Dick and his brother Cuthbert had helpfully drawn up. Meanwhile, having no legal right to be on the premises, the Men moved out of the Theatre. (...)

One clause in the original lease of 1576 stated that the building erected on the Shoreditch site should belong to the Burbages if it was removed before the date of expiry. Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, believing that Alleyn would renew, let the Theatre stand, assured that they would soon return to it. But when Alleyn came along with a new lease in 1598, the conditions to it were so outrageous that the Burbages refused to sign. Alleyn had expected this; indeed, he had so contrived the lease that it was inevitable. His aim was to use the Theatre building for his own ends. He did not want a renewal; he wanted his own land and a free play‑house.

The Lord Chamberlain's Men fumed. Then they began to look around for a new site. They found one near to the Rose and their rivals, the Lord Admiral's Men. It was a garden plot near Maid Lane, and they signed a lease that entitled them to move in on Christmas Day. Capital was needed, of course. The Burbage brothers would provide half; the other half was to be divided among Shakespeare, Heminges, Philips, Pope and Kemp. This would give Shakespeare a tenth part of the new playhouse as well as his share in the company itself. The contract for erecting the new theatre was given to Peter Street, master builder. Where were they to get the timber?

There was only one answer to that. During the Christmas holidays, when Alleyn was out of London, a dozen or so demolition workers, with the Burbages at their head, went to the old Theatre in Shoreditch and began tearing the structure down. Then they transported it across the river on carts, piling up the timber on that garden site on the Bankside. The last days of December were bitterly cold, and the Thames froze over. But the work went on, and there was no need to use London Bridge. It was like the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. God was on the side of the Lord Chamberlain's Men.

All through the following spring the workmen toiled overtime at erecting the finest theatre that London had ever seen. The players knew what they wanted something circular, a wooden O, with all the old appurtenances which had made the Elizabethan drama the swift, intimate, rhetorical medium it was: jutting apron, curtained‑off recess or study, tarrass or gallery above, musicians' gallery above that. A fair cellarage and a trapdoor. They yearned towards the moment when the playhouse flag would be unfurled for the first time, Hercules with the world on his shoulders. The motto would be "Totus mundus agit histrionem", roughly translatable as "All the world's stage". The name of the theatre would be the Globe.

from Anthony Burgess, Shakespeare (1970)