In 1613, a stage cannon used during a performance of Henry VIII set fire to the thatched roof of the Globe Theatre in London. The wooden playhouse burned rapidly, though no deaths were recorded. The disaster showed both the popularity and physical fragility of public theatre in Jacobean England.

The fire became part of the material history of Shakespearean drama, reminding later readers that plays were living performances before they were printed classics. The rebuilding of the Globe helped sustain the theatrical world from which English poetic drama drew its force.