Sixpence might then be the lowest admission; on other occasions, twopence, or even one penny.

The prologue to "Henry VIII." states: Those that come to see Only a show or two, and so agree, The play may pass; if they be still and willing, I'll undertake, may see away their shilling Richly in two short hours.
And there is evidence that in Shakespeare's time one shilling was the price of admission to the best rooms or boxes.

Sir Thomas Overbury writes in his "Characters," published in 1614: "If he have but twelve pence in his purse he will give it for the best room in a playhouse." And the "Gull's Horn Book," 1609, counsels, "At a new play you take up the twelvepenny room next the stage, because the lords and you may seem to be hail-fellow well met!" But it is plain that the tariff of admission was subject to frequent alterations, and that as money became more abundant, the managers gradually increased their charges.

In the "Scornful Lady" "eighteen pence" is referred to as though it were the highest price of admission to the Blackfriars Theatre.

Sir John Suckling writes, about the middle of the seventeenth century: The sweat of learned Jonson's brain, And gentle Shakespeare's easier strain, A hackney-coach conveys you to, In spite of all that rain can do, And for your eighteenpence you sit, The lord and judge of all fresh wit.
It must always be doubtful, however, as to the precise portion of the theatre these writers intended to designate.