Under Thomas Ashton drama flourished. He made it a rule that, boys in the senior form had, every school day, to "declaim and play one Act of Comedy" before breaking from school, and the school put on frequent public Whitsuntide and mystery plays concerned with moral romance, scripture, and history. In 1565, for instance, "Julian the Apostle" and another unnamed performance of Ashton's were performed before a large audience, which "listened with admiration and devotion". Queen Elizabeth I, on a journey to the west midlands in 1565 intended to visit Shrewsbury to see one of these performances, but "her Majesty not having proper information mistook the time and when she came to Coventry, hearing it was over, returned to London". The Quarry park in the town had long been a place for sort and cultural activity in the old town, and this was the site of many of these play, and a bank there cut in the form of an amphitheatre was established near the rope walk. They were, according to Thomas Warton, probably the first fruits of the English theater.