his statement of the case with the words:  “But it is apparent the King is grossly and shamelessly injured ...  I never did one act to provoke this attempt, nor does the Chamberlain pretend to assign any direct reason of forfeiture, but openly and wittingly declares that he will ruin Steele....  The Lord Chamberlain and many others may, perhaps, have done more for the House of Hanover than I have, but I am the only man in his majesty’s dominions, who did all he could.”  For some months Steele was replaced by other patentees, of whom Cibber was one, more submissive to “the lawful monarch of the stage,” as Dennis designated the Chamberlain; but in 1721, upon the intervention of Walpole, Steele was restored to his privileges.  It is not clear, however, that he took any legal measures to obtain compensation for the wrong done him.  Cibber is silent upon the subject; because, it has been suggested, the Chamberlain had been instrumental in obtaining him the appointment of poet laureate, which could hardly have devolved upon him in right of his poetic qualifications.

Nevertheless, Cibber had been active in organising a form of opposition to the authority of the Chamberlain and the Master of the Revels, which, although it seemed of a trifling kind, had yet its importance.  For it turned upon the question of fees.  The holders of the patents considered themselves sole judges of the plays proper to be acted in their theatres.  The Master of the Revels claimed his fee of forty shillings for each play produced.  The managers, it seems, were at liberty to represent new plays without consulting him, and to spare him the trouble of reading the same—­provided always they paid him his fees.  But these they now thought it expedient to withhold from him.  Cibber was deputed to attend the Master of the Revels, and to inquire into the justice of his demand, with full powers to settle the dispute amicably.  Charles Killigrew at this time filled the office, having succeeded his father Thomas, who had obtained the appointment of Master of the Revels upon the death of Sir Henry Herbert in 1673.  Killigrew could produce no warrant for his demand.  Cibber concluded with telling him that “as his pretensions were not backed with any visible instrument of right, and as his strongest plea was custom, the managers could not so far extend their complaisance as to continue the payment of fees upon so slender a claim to them.”  From that time neither their plays nor his fees gave either party any further trouble.  In 1725 Killigrew was succeeded as Master of the Revels by Charles Henry Lea, who for some years continued to exercise “such authority as was not opposed, and received such fees as he could find the managers willing to pay.”