Best known for his central role in the construction of the Globe Theatre, he was for four decades a significant agent in the success and endurance of Shakespeare's company, the King's Men.

On 12 July 1578, the arbitrators submitted the articles containing their decision, and both Burbage and Brayne signed bonds in the amount of £200 as a guarantee of performance.

[12] To further complicate matters, in order to evade his creditors, not only with respect to the Theatre but also in connection with the building of the George Inn with Robert Miles, Brayne signed various deeds of gift of his property,[17] and on 26 September 1579 Burbage borrowed £125 8s 11d from the London grocer John Hyde, in return for which he mortgaged the ground lease of the Theatre for a one-year term.

[11] James Burbage allowed Brayne's widow, Margaret (née Stowers),[4][20] a share of the profits for a short time, but then cut her off.

[21] In early 1587 Margaret Brayne, with financial backing from Robert Miles, sued James Burbage at common law in an attempt to either recover on the bonds or obtain a half interest in the ground lease and the profits of the Theatre.

On 16 November Margaret Brayne, Robert Miles and his son Ralph, and a friend, Nicholas Bishop, took a copy of the order to the Theatre to enforce its terms by taking half the profits from the gallery that day.

James Burbage, after an initial argument through a window of the Theatre, came down into the yard and called Robert Miles a knave and a rascal, and the widow Brayne a 'murdering whore'.

[24] In her will dated 8 April she made Robert Miles her sole executor and left him all her property, including her half interest in the Theatre, and he thereby inherited the litigation in which he had already been active as her financial backer.

[26] James Burbage died in February 1597, and two months later the ground lease on the Theatre expired, Giles Allen having refused to renew it.

[13][27] At this point Miles brought an action against Cuthbert Burbage in the Court of Requests, the outcome of which is not known as the relevant documents are no longer extant.

[11] Cuthbert Burbage was left to execute the matter of finding the Lord Chamberlain's Men a new home after the lease of the Theatre expired.

On the night of 28 December 1598, Cuthbert, Richard, a certain William Smith "of Waltham Cross, in the County of Hertford, gentleman", Streete, and twelve others took down the Theatre, carried all the wood and timber across the River Thames and built it again there.

Cuthbert and his brother had financed the new venue by making five actors (William Shakespeare, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, and William Kempe) as a group, half-sharers in the profits of the house: this arrangement seems to have solidified the structure of the group, helping cement the position of the Chamberlain's Men as the preeminent troupe in London.

[28] Burbage remained one of the keepers of the Globe until his death, aged seventy-one years, in 1636, and the position appears to have been lucrative for him; he lived in a house in the parish of St. Leonard's Shoreditch.