Chapter IX: Book I: The Court (6)

Here the minutes stop, but Burghley must have been satisfied and must have allowed the arrangement to go forward, for on 10 January 1598 a new warrant was issued, in the place of that previously stayed, for the £200 due on account of 1593-6, and for the annual £66 6_s._ 8_d._, 'by way of composition for defraying the ordinary services of plays only'. Apparently the fixed rate was made retrospective for 1593-6.[307] Two or three points of interest arise from the document just printed. It seems curious that no share in the composition is awarded to the Clerk. Possibly Blagrave, old and disappointed, was in practical retirement at Bedwyn; but in that case he would naturally have appointed and claimed allowance for a deputy. On the other hand, a new post, of Groom of the Revels, corresponding to that of Groom of the Tents which had existed since 1544, seems to have been created, probably for the benefit of Thomas Clatterbocke, who, unless two generations are involved, had served the Office continuously as a foreman tailor since 1548;[308] and it is to be gathered that some redistribution of duties and emoluments between the Yeoman and the Groom was in progress. The Porter of St. John's Gate, also, now seems to be classed as an officer, or perhaps rather a 'servitor', of the Revels; and in this post John Dauncy has been succeeded since 1588-9 by John Griffeth.[309] The sum of £66 6_s._ 8_d._ allowed for ordinary charges was evidently made up of £40 for officers' 'wages' and £26 6_s._ 8_d._ for tradesmen's bills and miscellaneous expenses. This last sum is so small as to suggest that the Office had been relieved both of the emption of stuffs and of the payment of tailors and property-makers. After paying £19 to the inferior officers, Tilney had £21 left for his own 'wages'. This amount is out of proportion to the double rate, of 4_s._ as against the 2_s._ paid to each inferior officer, which the Master had been accustomed to receive for each day's or night's attendance. But the accounts for 1582-3, 1584-5, and 1587-8 show that the attendances made by Tilney, who possibly exercised a much more detailed supervision of his Office than either Benger or Cawarden had attempted, were far in excess, during those years, of those of his subordinates. Every officer attended for the twenty annual days of 'airing' and for the actual nights, which were sixteen in 1582-3, and fourteen in 1584-5 and 1587-8, of the performances. In addition, Tilney attended for 106, 117, and 116 days respectively, and the other officers for only 60, 51, and 28 (in the case of the Yeoman, 38) days respectively, in these three years.[310] Probably he liked to be at Court, whether there was much to do or not. The average allowances for wages had therefore been about £29 10_s._ a year for the Master and £7 10_s._ a year for each inferior officer, so that the composition was by no means unduly in Tilney's favour. Moreover, he had introduced a practice of taking to Court a doorkeeper and three other attendants, and charging 1_s._ a day as diet for each. Probably these were his personal servants, and he got no further allowance for them under the composition. The precedence of the Master of the Revels at Court was fixed by a certificate of the Heralds in 1588, which directed that in the procession to St. Paul's for a thanksgiving after the Armada he should walk with the Knights Bachelor.[311]

Of course, the 'wages' dealt with by the composition and charged to the Revels Account were quite distinct from the 'fees' payable to the officers out of the Exchequer in virtue of their patents. These had been settled in Cawarden's time, and, so far as the inferior officers were concerned, do not appear to have been varied since. The Clerk Comptroller was entitled to 8_d._ a day, together with four yards of woollen cloth, worth 6_s._ 8_d._ each, from the Wardrobe. In practice, however, the livery had been replaced by a money allowance of 26_s._ 8_d._ charged half on the Revels and half on the Tents.[312] The Clerk had 8_d._ a day, and a money payment from the Treasury of 24_s._ a year in lieu of livery; the Yeoman 6_d._ a day, and a livery 'such as Yeomen of the household have' at the Wardrobe. The Master's fee, alike in the patents of Cawarden, Benger, and Tilney, is given as £10. But Tilney, according to a statement made by his successor about 1611, received £100 'for a better recompence'.[313] In addition to fee and wages, each of the officers was entitled under his patent to an official residence. The Master held his place 'cum omnibus domibus mansionibus regardis proficuis iuribus libertatibus et advantagiis eidem officio quovismodo pertinentibus sive spectantibus vel tali officio pertinere sive spectare debentibus'. The Clerk Comptroller could claim a house, 'ubi paviliones ... positi sunt aut erunt' to be assigned by the Master of the Tents; the Clerk, one at the _staura_ of the Revels or the Tents, to be assigned by the Master of one or other Office; the Yeoman 'one sufficient house or mancion such as hereafter shall be assigned to him' for the keeping of the vestures. Cawarden had provided these houses at the Blackfriars and had taken allowances in his accounts of £10 for his own and £5 each for those of his three subordinates, as well as one of £6 13_s._ 4_d._ for the work and store rooms of the Office.[314] After his death suitable lodgings were available at St. John's. During the interregnum the Master's lodging was utilized as a supplementary storehouse. It was consequently not ready for Tilney on his appointment, and he was allowed £13 6_s._ 8_d._ a year for lodgings elsewhere.[315] An undated letter from him at the Revels Office to Sir William More, complaining of the conduct of a neighbour, suggests that he found these at the Blackfriars, and here he seems to have remained, at any rate until 1582.[316] But by 1586-7 he had moved to St. John's, where he occupied not his proper lodging but that of the Comptroller, for which he paid £16 a year. This we learn from a careful survey made at that date by Thomas Graves, Surveyor of the Office of Works.[317] He was comfortably housed enough, for he had thirteen chambers, with a parlour, hall, kitchen, stable and other appurtenances, and a 'convenient garden'. The Clerk had eleven rooms and a stable, and the Yeoman seven and a barn. The addition of the Master's lodging to the space available for official purposes had presumably removed the difficulties of accommodation of which Fish had complained in 1574. In addition to the 'Great Hall' and a 'great chamber', there were a cutting house and three 'woorking housez' below the hall. It may be added that there had been some changes during Tilney's Mastership, both of Clerk Comptroller and of Yeoman. On 15 October 1584 William Honing was appointed Comptroller in place of Edward Buggin.[318] On 25 June 1596, Honing having resigned, Edmund Pakenham was appointed as from 29 September 1595.[319] The last Yeoman of the reign was Edward Kirkham. His patent, in succession to Walter Fish, then dead, is dated on 28 April 1586.[320] But it refers to his 'service done in the Revels', and it is clear from the account for 1582-3 that he was already employed during that year, probably as deputy to Fish, in whose place he signed the book.[321] Fish signed that for 1580-1, and that for 1581-2 is missing. Kirkham's activities as a member of the syndicate formed to finance the Chapel plays in 1601 are a matter for discussion elsewhere.[322]

Tilney remained Master of the Revels until his death on 20 August 1610. But with the new reign he appears to have exercised most of his functions through his nephew, Sir George Buck, as his deputy and prospective successor. Buck had been in the Cadiz expedition of 1596, and was not improbably the Mr. Buck who carried dispatches for Cecil to Middelburgh in the Low Countries and afterwards in England during the autumn of 1601.[323] At the funeral of Elizabeth he received livery as an Esquire of the Body, probably extraordinary.[324] Hopes of the Mastership seem to have been held out to him as early as 1597, to the despair of another Esquire of the Body, John Lyly, the dramatist, who considered that he had claims upon the reversion to the Mastership, and pretty clearly regarded the bestowal of it upon another as a distinct breach of faith on the part of the Queen. Several letters of his referring to the matter are preserved at Hatfield and elsewhere. The earliest and most important of these is dated 22 December 1597 and addressed to Sir Robert Cecil. Herein Lyly says:

'I haue not byn importunat, that thes 12 yeres w_it_h vnwearied
pacienc have entertayned the p_ro_rogui_n_g of her ma_ies_ties
promises, w_hi_ch if in the 13 may conclud w_it_h the
Parlement, I will think the greves of tymes past but pastymes
... Offices in Reuersion are forestalld, in possession ingrost,
& that of _th_e Reuells countenanced upon Buck, wherein the
Justic of an oyre shewes his affection to _th_e keper &
partialty to _th_e sheppard, a french fauor.'

To the Queen herself Lyly wrote:

'I was entertayned yo_u_r Mai_es_ties servant by yo_u_r owne
gratious ffavo_u_r, stranghthened w_i_th condic_i_ons, that I
should ayme all my courses att the Revells (I dare not saye,
w_i_th a promise, butt a hopeffull Item, of the Reversion);
ffor the w_hi_ch, theis tenn yeares, I haue attended, w_i_th an
vnwearyed patience, and I knowe not whatt crabb tooke mee ffor
an oyster, that, in the middest of the svnnshine of yo_u_r
gratious aspect, hath thrust a stone betwene the shelles, to
eate mee alyve, that onely lyve on dead hopes.'

The date of this petition is probably 1598, since a second letter to Cecil, dated 9 September 1598, specifies the same period of 'ten yeres', during which Lyly had had 'nothing applied to my wantes but promises'. On 27 February 1601, a third letter to Cecil, asking for his aid in obtaining a grant out of property forfeited after the Essex conspiracy, suggests that 'after 13 yeres servic and suit for _th_e Revells, I may turne all my forces & frends to feed on _th_e Rebells'. This was written in connexion with a second petition to the Queen, in which occurs the following passage:

'It pleased yo_u_r Mai_es_tie to except against Tentes and
Toyles. I wishe, that ffor Tentes I might putt in Tenem_en_tes:
soe should I bee eased with some Toyles; some landes, some
goodes, ffynes, or fforffeytures, that should ffall, by the
just ffall of these most ffalce Trayto_u_rs, that seeinge
nothinge will come by the Revells, I may praye vppon Rebells.
Thirteen yeares, yo_u_r Highnes Servant, butt yett
nothinge....'[325]

The general drift of these documents is fairly clear. It would seem that Lyly received promises of advancement from Elizabeth about 1585, probably as a result of the success of his plays; that in 1588 he was 'entertained the queen's servant', with a more or less authorized expectation of place in the Revels; that in 1597 his claims were set aside in favour of Buck; and that, after unavailing protests, he made the best of the situation and attempted to obtain what compensation he could for his disappointment. I find some confirmation of the view that about 1588 Lyly came to be regarded, possibly on account of the aid rendered by his pen to the bishops against Martin Marprelate, as having some right of succession to a place at Court, in an allusion of Gabriel Harvey, who in his _Advertisement for Papp-Hatchett_, dated 5 November 1589, but not published until it was included in his _Pierce's_ _Supererogation_ of 1593, says of Papp-Hatchett, who is almost certainly Lyly, 'He might as truly forge any lewd or villanous report of any one in England; and for his labour challenge to be preferred to the Clerkship of the whetstone'; and again, 'His knavish and foolish malice palpably bewrayeth itself in most odious actions; meet to garnish the foresayd famous office of the whetstone'.[326] The actual phrasing of Lyly's letters is, of course, characteristically obscure. It is possible that the 'keper' referred to in the first of them is the Lord Keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton, to whom, if Collier may be trusted, Buck sent, in 1605, a copy of a poem called [Greek: DAPHNIS POLYSTEPHANOS], with some lines referring to an obligation of long standing towards his patron.[327] The allusion to 'Tentes and Toyles' may mean that, after giving up hope of the Mastership of the Revels, Lyly had turned his thoughts to the Mastership of the Tents and Toils, the actual holder of which, in 1601, Henry Sackford, had been appointed to the Tents as far back as 1559, and must therefore have been an oldish man; or possibly that, if he could not have the higher place, Lyly would have been content with the reversion of one of the two subordinate appointments, the Clerkship or the Clerk Comptrollership, which the Revels shared with the Tents.[328]

I may complete the story by pointing out that Buck, no less than Lyly, was making interest with Cecil. As a connexion of the Howards, he had of course a powerful influence behind him, and after the death of Nicasius Yetswiert, French Secretary and Clerk of the Signet, Lord Howard of Effingham had written to Cecil on 28 April 1595[329]:

'In favour of Mʳ. Buck, whom Her Majesty, talking with Mʳ. John
Stanhope, herself named, showing a gracious disposition to do
him good, and think him fit, as sure he is, for one of the two
offices of Mʳ. Necasius, that is called unto God's mercy. For
the French tongue he can do it very well to serve her Majesty.'

Four years later, on 1 June 1599, Buck himself wrote to the Secretary[330]:

'I understood by a friend of mine, not many months since, that
you were very well affected to mine old long suit, and of your
own disposition offered to move the Queen in my behalf. Ever
since I reckoned myself in your good favour till yesterday that
I heard you had given your goodwill to another, and besides
had persuaded one of my chiefest friends to be solicitor for
him. My interest therein accrued out of frank almoin, and
therefore I can claim no estate but during pleasure, yet I
hoped, as other poor true tenants do, not to be turned out so
long as I performed my honest duties.'

This may reasonably be taken as referring to the Mastership of the Revels, and makes it clear that, whatever Elizabeth had said or done in 1597, she had not given Buck any irrecoverable promise. Very likely she never did. But early in the new reign, on 23 June 1603, Buck received a formal grant by patent of the reversion to Tilney.[331] On the same day was issued a new commission for the office, similar to that of 1581, but in Buck's name instead of Tilney's, from which it is to be inferred that he had become the acting Master.[332] On 23 July 1603 he was knighted.[333] Tilney, however, continued to render the accounts, which, with two exceptions, only exist for the whole of the reign of James in a summary form. The account for 1609-10 is by Tilney's executor, Thomas Tilney; and from 1610-11 onwards Buck is accounting officer, and in full enjoyment of the Mastership.[334] One of the two detailed accounts is Tilney's for 1604-5, the other Buck's for 1611-12. These are made interesting by their schedules of Court performances, the authenticity of which may now be regarded as fairly vindicated.[335] They show that the establishment remained precisely upon its sixteenth-century lines. The close of Elizabeth's reign witnessed the termination by death of Blagrave's fifty-seven years' service in the Revels.[336] William Honing, the former Comptroller, returned to the Office as Clerk in his room, under a patent made retrospective to 25 March 1603.[337] He was still there, as was Edward Kirkham, the Yeoman, in 1617.[338] On the other hand there was a rather rapid succession of Clerk Comptrollers: Edmund Pakenham to 1605-6, Edmund Fowler from 1606-7 to 1608-9, William Page in 1609-10, and Alexander Stafford from 24 April 1611 to 1617 or later.[339] The Groom or Purveyor, like the Porter of St. John's, appears to have been a servitor and not an officer by patent. During 1603-15 he was Stephen Baile, who had succeeded Thomas Clatterbocke. The Porter of St. John's, during the same period, was Richard Prescot.[340]

The change of reign brought with it another change in the financial arrangements for the office. The 'composition' introduced by Burghley in 1597 was abandoned, and henceforth the Master regularly received an imprest of £100 at the beginning of each financial year, together with the balance due on an account rendered by him for all charges since the time of the last imprest. The total amount passing through his hands was not large. During the earlier years of the reign it varied from £150 to £300, and during 1611-15 from £300 to £500.[341] In 1617 the 'ordinary' issues for the Revels were still estimated at £300.[342] Nor was there any special need for 'extraordinary' issues, since the organization of the masks, in which Jacobean Court extravagance centred, was not entrusted to the Revels at all, but to some nominated officer, under the direct supervision of the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Horse, who received funds direct from the Treasury for any expenditure which did not fall within the provinces of the Wardrobe or the Office of Works.[343] The Revels Officers continued indeed to give their personal attendance on mask nights, and to charge for their diet accordingly. But their actual responsibility for the entertainments appears to have been limited to the supervision of the fittings, such as the 'music house' in the hall or banqueting-house, and in particular of the elaborate arrangements for lighting. The wire-drawer's bill is the chief outgoing represented in the annual accounts. There is very little else except the personal allowances for the officers and the Master's four servants, their office expenses and boat-hire, the audit and exchequer costs, and occasional repairs to the 'tiring-house' used for rehearsals and other parts of the premises which they occupied. The Master charges diet for himself and his men for every day between All Hallows and Ash Wednesday, together with an extra amount for each actual night of play or mask, and for a varying number of days of tilting and running at the ring and twenty days of 'airing' in the summer. The Comptroller, Clerk, and Yeoman get £13 6_s._ 8_d._ each and the Groom £6 13_s._ 4_d._ for the whole of their required attendance. Beyond a stray property or garment here and there, there is nothing spent on emptions of stuff or on tailors and the like. I think it is clear that the result of the policy initiated by Burghley had been to reduce the Revels, regarded as a branch of the Household organization, to comparative insignificance. Henceforward its domestic duties sink into the background of the quasi-political functions given to the Master as stage censor by the commissions of 1581 and 1603. But these functions were peculiar to the Master, who carried them out with the aid of his personal servants.[344] The other Revels officers had no claim to share in them, and though Tilney and Buck built up a considerable income out of licensing fees, which probably accounts for the discontinuance in Buck's case of the 'better recompense' of £100 granted by Elizabeth to Tilney, no penny of these fees ever passed through the Revels Accounts.

The slight increase of cost observable in course of time is mainly due to charges for lodgings. The want of accommodation at Hampton Court in the winter of 1603-4 obliged the officers to rent rooms at Kingston for a month at a cost of £4.[345] In 1607 a far more serious problem was presented by the impending loss of St. John's. This had remained in Crown hands throughout Elizabeth's time, although on 31 October 1601 we find John Chamberlain writing to Dudley Carleton, 'The Quene sells land still and the house of St. Johns is at sale'.[346] James, however, after leasing the Gatehouse for life to Sir Roger Wilbraham in 1604, carried out his predecessor's intention by selling the greater part of the Priory to Ralph Freeman on 9 May 1607.[347] Presumably the premises which had been assigned to the Revels were not covered by this sale, for of these the King made a gift in the same year to his cousin Esmé Stuart, eighth Lord Aubigny.[348] The Revels therefore had to be dispossessed. But the Office had to be housed somewhere; and the officers were all entitled to official residences under the terms of their patents. It was doubtless in connexion with this transaction that the following memorandum, which is preserved amongst Sir Julius Caesar's papers and endorsed 'Mr. Tilney's writinge touching his Office', was drawn up.[349]

The Office of _th_e Revells Is noted to be one of _th_e Kinges
Ma_ie_st_e_s standinge Offices, as are the Jewellhowsse, _th_e
wardropp, _th_e Ordinance, the Armorye, and the Tentes with
_th_e like Allowances everie wayes _th_at any of _th_em haue.

W_hi_ch Office of _th_e Revells Consistethe of a wardropp and
other severall Roomes for Artifficers to worke in (viz.
Taylors, Imbrotherers, Properti makers, Paynters, wyerdrawers
and Carpenters), togeather with a Convenient place for _th_e
Rehearshalls and settinge forthe of Playes and other Shewes for
those Services.

In w_hi_ch Office _th_e Master of _th_e Office hath ever hadd a
dwellinge Howsse for him self and his Famelie, and _th_e other
Officers ar to haue eyther dwellinge Howsses Assigned unto
_th_em by _th_e M_aste_r (for so goeth the wordes of _th_er
Pattent_es_) or else a Rente for _th_e same as _th_ei had
before they Came unto St. Johnes.

For by ther Pattents, w_hi_ch be all eyther new graunted or
Confirmed by the King_es_ Ma_ies_tie, They ar Allowed as the
Master Is to haue eache of them a dwellinge Howsse w_i_th
garden and Stable for Terme of _th_er lyues, as ther
Predicessors hadd (viz. w_i_thin St. Johnes), w_hi_ch Cannot
well be taken from vs w_i_thout good Consideration for the
same: or _th_e lyke Allowance for Howssroome.

Elye Howsse Is possessed agayne by _th_e Byshopp as I doe
heare.

But S_i_r Thomas Knevitt hath vnder neathe his keepershipp of
Whitehaull, dyvers howsses, as Hawnces and Baptistas with ij or
iij howsses more Appertayninge ther vnto, near vnto _th_e olde
Pallas In westminster w_hi_ch I doe doubte be all rented out by
him for Terme of his lyeffe.

The difficulty was met by a plan which had served before in the history of the Revels. The officers were allowed to provide their own lodgings, and to charge £15 each for the purpose in the Office account. A similar allowance (£20) was made to the Master for the provision of an office.[350] The actual removal, so far as the office was concerned, took place in the spring of 1608. The accounts show expenses 'in providing a place for th'office of the Revells' between 10 February and the middle of April, and there is independent evidence that on the 10th of March, it was located next door to the Whitefriars theatre.[351] Tilney's personal allowance first appears in the account for 1608-9, and is made retrospective to Michaelmas 1607. Perhaps the Clerk and Yeoman were not disturbed quite so soon. Their allowances first appear in 1610-11, and are retrospective to Hallowmas 1608.[352] It may be assumed that the Comptroller's lodging was treated as a charge on the Tents. On Tilney's death, Buck was allowed £30 to cover both the Office and his own lodging, and the payment antedated to Michaelmas 1608. He protested that he had in fact to pay a rent of £50, and although Salisbury probably turned a deaf ear, his appeal was allowed when his Howard connexions, Suffolk and Northampton, became Treasury Commissioners in 1612, and the allowance was finally fixed at £50.[353] It should be added that Buck also secured in 1612-13, and very likely in other years, a quite distinct allowance of £16, under a warrant from the Lord Chamberlain to the Treasurer of the Chamber, as compensation for the absence of a lodging for him at a crowded Court during the winter revels season.[354] The Office cannot have stayed long in the Whitefriars, for on 24 August 1612 Buck dedicated a treatise on _The Third University in England_ to Sir Edward Coke 'from his Majesties office of the Revels, upon St. Peter's Hill'.[355] This is an account of the seats of learning in London, and was printed by Howes as an appendix to the 1615 edition of Stowe's _Annales_. Chapter 47 is _Of the Art of Revels_, and is worth quoting:

'I might add herunto for a corollary of this discourse the Art
of Revels which requireth knowledge in Grammar, Rhetoric,
Logic, Philosophy, History, Music, Mathematics, and in other
Arts (and all more than I understand I confess) and hath a
settled place within this City. But because I have described it
and discoursed thereof at large in a particular commentary,
according to my talent, I will surcease to speak any more
thereof: blazing only the Arms belonging to it; which are
Gules, a cross argent, and in the first corner of the
scutcheon, a Mercury's petasus argent, and a lion gules in
chief or.'[356]

It is matter for deep regret that Buck's 'particular commentary' is lost. He made other contributions to letters, writing commendatory verses to Thomas Watson's [Greek: EKATOMPATHIA] (_c._ 1582) and to Camden's _Britannia_ (1607), and a poem called [Greek: DAPHNIS POLYSTEPHANOS] (1605).[357] His _History of the Life and Reigne of Richard III_ was published posthumously in 1607.[358]

Reversions of the Mastership were granted during Buck's lifetime to Edward Glasscock in 1603, to John, afterwards Sir John, Astley or Ashley on 3 April 1612, to Benjamin Jonson on 5 October 1621, and to William Painter on 29 July 1622.[359] His actual successor was Sir John Astley. On 30 March 1622 John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton, 'Old Sir George Buck, master of the revels, has gone mad'.[360] On 29 March 1622 a warrant was issued by the Lord Chamberlain to swear Astley in as Master, followed on 16 May by a letter requiring Buck to deliver up the books and other property of the Office.[361] His death took place on 20 September 1623.[362] Astley almost immediately sold his office to Sir Henry Herbert, whose tenure of it belongs to the history of the Caroline stage.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 232: _Order for Sitting in the King's Great Chamber_ (_H. O._ 113): 'If the master of revells be there, he may sitt with the chapleyns or with the esquires or gentlemen ushers.']

[Footnote 233: Cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 404.]

[Footnote 234: Cf. ch. xiii.]

[Footnote 235: Brewer, i. 24, 283, 690, 828; ii. 875, 1044, 1479; iii. 129; iv. 868; cf. _Tudor Revels_, 6.]

[Footnote 236: Machyn, 157.]

[Footnote 237: Brewer, vii. 560; Feuillerat, _M. P._ 22; cf. _Tudor Revels_, 7.]

[Footnote 238: Brewer, xiv. 1. 574; 2. 102, 159.]

[Footnote 239: Patent in Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 53. The appointment was retrospective from 16 March 1544. Cawarden had taken an inventory of Revels stuff for the King as far back as 10 Dec. 1542 (Feuillerat, _M. P._ 27). The historical memorandum of 1573 (cf. p. 82) printed in _Tudor Revels_, 2, says, 'After the deathe of Travers Seriaunt of the said office. Sir Thomas Carden knight, beinge of the kinges maiesties pryvie Chamber, beinge skilfull and delightinge in matters of devise, preferred to that office, did mislyke to be tearmed a Seriaunt because of his better countenaunce of roome and place beinge of the kinges maiesties privye Chamber. And so became he by patent the first master of the Revelles.']

[Footnote 240: Patent in Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 70; cf. Feuillerat, _Edw. and M._ 4, 9.]

[Footnote 241: _Tudor Revels_, 2, from memorandum of 1573.]

[Footnote 242: Brewer, xx. I. 213; Feuillerat, _M. P._ 28; _Edw. and M._ 49; Patent to Lees in Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 56.]

[Footnote 243: Patent in Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 66.]

[Footnote 244: Patent in Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 68; cf. _Edw. and M._ 74, 180, 272. Blagrave is described as Cawarden's 'servant' in 1546-7, and again in Cawarden's will of 1559. He was aged about 50 on 27 June 1572 (_M. S. C._ ii. 52).]

[Footnote 245: Kempe, 93.]

[Footnote 246: Brewer, i. 636, 757; ii. 179; xvi. 603.]

[Footnote 247: Feuillerat, _Edw. and M._ 3; cf. ch. xvii (Blackfriars).]

[Footnote 248: _Tudor Revels_, 3, from memorandum of 1573. An account of Cawarden's life by T. Craib is in _Surrey Arch. Colls._ xxviii. 7 (1915). There is a doubt as to the exact date of his death. The i.p.m. gives 29 Aug.; his epitaph 25 Aug. Similarly the Blechingley register gives 29 Aug. for his funeral; Machyn, 208, gives 5 Sept.]

[Footnote 249: Patent in Rymer, xv. 565; Collier, i. 170, from privy seal; Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 54.]

[Footnote 250: Nichols, _Eliz._ i. 115, 280; _Athenaeum_ (1903), i. 220; _3 Library_, ix. 252; Collier, i. 185. A reference to the Master of 'Revels' in _Hatfield MSS._ i. 551 is a mistake for 'Rolls'. Benger was son of Robert Benger or Berenger of Marlborough (_Harl. Soc. Visitations_, lviii. 10), was knighted 2 Oct. 1553 (Machyn, 335), and was auditor to Elizabeth as princess (Hearne, _John of Glastonbury_, 519). Further personal notes are in Stopes, _Hunnis_, 104, 311.]

[Footnote 251: Collier, i. 171 (assigned in error to Cawarden); Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 110, from _S. P. D. Eliz._ vii. 50.]

[Footnote 252: _Hist. MSS._ vii. 615.]

[Footnote 253: Lady Derby writes to Sir Christopher Hatton in 1580 that she had been with her cousin Sackford (Master of the Tents) in 'his house at St. John's' (Nicolas, _Hatton_, 148).]

[Footnote 254: Printed by Feuillerat, _Edw. and M._ 180; _Eliz._ 18, 77.]

[Footnote 255: Sometimes garments no longer useful for masks, but not yet cast as fees, had been altered for players, and either kept in the office and 'often used by players', or given to the players or musicians 'by composicion' or 'for their fee'. Some were missing because 'the lordes that masked toke awey parte', or they had been 'gyven awaye by the maskers in the queenes presence'. Some were treated as fees, because 'to moche knowen'; in an earlier inventory of 1555 we find 'ffees because the King hath worin hit' (Feuillerat, _Edw. and M._ 299; _Eliz._ 24, 25, 27, 40.)]

[Footnote 256: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 109, 119, 124, 125, 126. Possibly the amounts of imprests are in some years to be added.]

[Footnote 257: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 130, 135.]

[Footnote 258: Patent in Feuillerat, 58.]

[Footnote 259: Patent in Feuillerat, 72.]

[Footnote 260: Feuillerat, 408, from _S. P. D. Eliz. Add._ xx. 101; Collier, i. 230, who thinks that the application was for the Mastership of the Revels.]

[Footnote 261: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 409; Collier, i. 191; from _Lansd. MS._ 13; cf. ch. v.]

[Footnote 262: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 429. He died in debt, and his will was not proved until 1577 (Chalmers, 482). This led me into thinking (_Tudor Revels_, 26) that during 1572-7 he was alive, but not actively exercising his functions, and possibly into some injustice in suggesting that he had 'in the end proved an extravagant and unbusinesslike Master'. Yet Blagrave's memorandum of 1573 (_vide infra_) seems to lay a special stress on the importance of appointing a Master who shall be 'neither gallant, prodigall, nedye, nor gredye'.]

[Footnote 263: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 187, 456, correcting Collier, i. 198 and _Tudor Revels_, 26.]

[Footnote 264: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 157, 160, 172, 178.]

[Footnote 265: Ibid. 186.]

[Footnote 266: _Tudor Revels_, 28; Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 416; from _Lansd. MS._ 83, f. 145, misdated in pencil 'July 1597'.]

[Footnote 267: _Tudor Revels_, 29; Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 412; from _Lansd. MS._ 83, f. 147. Dodmer was still pursuing a claim in the Court of Requests in May 1576 (Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 413).]

[Footnote 268: Text in full in _Tudor Revels_, 1, 31, and Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 5, from _Lansd. MS._ 83, f. 158.]

[Footnote 269: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 432, points out that, as Elizabeth's Privy Council is referred to, these ordinances can hardly have been those of Cawarden (cf. p. 74) as I suggested in _Tudor Revels_, 34.]

[Footnote 270: Text in full in _Tudor Revels_, 42, and Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 17, from _Lansd. MS._ 83, f. 154. The time-references agree with 1573 or 1574, if Blagrave's unestablished service in the Revels began as early as 1546.]

[Footnote 271: _Lansd. MS._ 83, f. 149. The reference to two years' debts suggests a date, when compared with Dodmer's, in the summer of 1574; if so, the writer will be Fish, rather than Arnold.]

[Footnote 272: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 164.]

[Footnote 273: A _Declared Account_ for 14 Feb. 1578 to 14 Feb. 1579 is in Blagrave's name.]

[Footnote 274: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 212, 218, 238, 247, 267, 277, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300.]

[Footnote 275: Ibid. 192, 266, 277, 297, 301.]

[Footnote 276: Ibid. 191.]

[Footnote 277: Patent in Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 73; cf. 191, Collier, i. 227, and _Variorum_, iii. 499.]

[Footnote 278: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 197, 204, 212, 228, 247, 268, 277, 291, 300.]

[Footnote 279: Ibid. 182, 225.]

[Footnote 280: Ibid. 256, 321.]

[Footnote 281: Ibid. 162, 165.]

[Footnote 282: Ibid. 191.]

[Footnote 283: Ibid. 242.]

[Footnote 284: Ibid. 179, 186, 277, Table III.]

[Footnote 285: Ibid. 185.]

[Footnote 286: Ibid. 204, 219, 268.]

[Footnote 287: Ibid. 218.]

[Footnote 288: Ibid. 202; cf. _Tudor Revels_, 5.]

[Footnote 289: _Hist. MSS._ iv. 300.]

[Footnote 290: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 227, 247, 277, 300, 310, 457.]

[Footnote 291: App. D, No. xxxiii.]

[Footnote 292: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 55 (text of patent), 285, 302, 310, 312; _Variorum_, iii. 57; Chalmers, 482; Collier, i. 230, 235; _Dramatic Records_, 2.]

[Footnote 293: Digges, 359.]

[Footnote 294: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 330.]

[Footnote 295: Ibid. 434.]

[Footnote 296: Ibid. 354, 358, 370, 381, 391.]

[Footnote 297: Ibid. 359.]

[Footnote 298: See text in App. D, No. lvi.]

[Footnote 299: Cf. ch. x.]

[Footnote 300: Cf. ch. i.]

[Footnote 301: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ Table II.]

[Footnote 302: Stowe, _Annales_, 689; Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 168; cf. ch. i.]

[Footnote 303: _S. P. D. Eliz._ ccxlviii, p. 512.]

[Footnote 304: Ibid, cclxii, p. 351. The calendar does not, however, note the _marginalia_ to the docquet referred to below.]

[Footnote 305: Cf. p. 82.]

[Footnote 306: _Tudor Revels_, 64, and Feuillerat, 417, from _Lansd. MS._ 83, f. 170.]

[Footnote 307: _S. P. D. Eliz._ cclxvi, p. 5.]

[Footnote 308: Feuillerat, _Edw. and M._ 29; cf. p. 100.]

[Footnote 309: Feuillerat, 394, 417.]

[Footnote 310: Feuillerat, 352, 360, 367, 372, 379, 382.]

[Footnote 311: _S. P. D._ cclxxix. 86.]

[Footnote 312: Feuillerat, 108.]

[Footnote 313: Chalmers, 486, 490; _S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxv. 2. The fee lists (cf. p. 29) confirm this, sometimes adding 'diet in court'.]

[Footnote 314: Feuillerat, 108.]

[Footnote 315: Ibid. 310, 463.]

[Footnote 316: _Hist. MSS._ vii. 661; Feuillerat, 467.]

[Footnote 317: Feuillerat, 47. Owing to the omission of Burghley's title in the address of the report, I misdated it in _Tudor Revels_, 20. The history of St. John's is given by W. P. Griffith, _An Architectural Notice of St. John's Priory, Clerkenwell_ (_1 London and Middlesex Arch. Soc. Trans._ iii. 157); A. W. Clapham, _St. John of Jerusalem, Clerkenwell_ (_St. Paul's Ecclesiological Soc. Trans._ vii. 37). It was a Priory of the Knights Hospitallers, founded _c._ 1100, and enlarged in the fifteenth century. The Gatehouse, which still stands, was rebuilt by Prior Thomas Docwra in 1504. After the dissolution in 1540, the stones of the church were used for Somerset House, and the rest granted to Dudley. Mary resumed it and refounded the Priory. After the second dissolution by Elizabeth, the property remained in the hands of the Crown.]

[Footnote 318: Patent in Feuillerat, 60.]

[Footnote 319: Patent in Feuillerat, 63.]

[Footnote 320: Ibid. 74.]

[Footnote 321: Ibid. 360.]

[Footnote 322: Cf. ch. xii.]

[Footnote 323: _Hatfield MSS._ xi. 359, 379, 380. The 'Mr. Buck' implicated in the Essex rebellion of 1601 (_Hist. MSS._ xi. 4. 10) was Francis Buck (_Hatfield MSS._ xi. 214).]

[Footnote 324: _Lord Chamberlain's Records_, 554. Can he also have been a Gentleman of the Chapel? A Gentleman was sworn in 'in Mr. Buckes roome' on 2 July 1603, just after he became acting Master (Rimbault, 6).]

[Footnote 325: The letters are printed in full in Bond, _Lyly_, i. 64, 68, 70, 378, 392, 395. A contemporary note by Sir Stephen Powle to a copy of the 1601 appeal says, 'He was a suter to be Mr. of the Reuelles and tentes and Toyles, but eauer crossed'.]

[Footnote 326: Grosart, _Harvey_, ii. 211.]

[Footnote 327: Collier, i. 361.]

[Footnote 328: The conjecture of R. W. Bond (_Lyly_, i. 41) that Lyly was actually Clerk Comptroller is rendered untenable by our complete knowledge of the succession to that post; cf. _Tudor Revels_, 60, and Feuillerat, _Lyly_, 194, who shows that Lyly was the Queen's 'servant' as Esquire of the Body.]

[Footnote 329: _Hatfield MSS._ v. 189.]

[Footnote 330: Ibid. ix. 190.]

[Footnote 331: _Patent Roll, 1 Jac. I_, p. 24, m. 25; Text from seventeenth-century copy in _Dramatic Records_, 14; docquet, dated 21 June, in _S. P. D. Jac. I_, ii. p. 16. The terms, which follow those of earlier patents, are recited in the Declared Accounts of the Office from 1610-11 onwards.]

[Footnote 332: _Patent Roll, 1 Jac. I_, p. 24, m. 31. The date 1613 given by Chalmers, 491, is an error. An imperfect copy is in _Dulwich MS._ xviii. 5, f. 51 (Warner, 338). The docquet in _S. P. D. Jac. I_, ii. p. 16, is dated 21 June.]

[Footnote 333: Nichols, _James_, i. 215.]

[Footnote 334: He did not, however, get Tilney's fee of £100 (cf. p. 103) but only the original £10 (_Abstract_ of 1617) or, according to some of the manuscript fee lists (_Stowe MSS._ 574, f. 16; 575, f. 22ᵛ), £20. Tilney's monument is in Streatham church (Lysons, _Environs_, i. 365) but does not give the exact date of his death.]

[Footnote 335: Cf. App. B.]

[Footnote 336: The pedigree in _Middlesex Pedigrees_ (_Harl. Soc._ lxv), 83, dates his death in error 18 Jan. 1590, but it is interesting to note that his daughter Mary married William, brother of Thomas Lodge. He was buried at Clerkenwell.]

[Footnote 337: Patent in _Dramatic Records_, 9, dated 5 (? 15) June; docquet of 10 June in _S. P. D. Jac. I_, ii. p. 14; draft of 30 May in _S. P. D. Eliz. Addl._ ix. 58.]

[Footnote 338: _Abstract_, 60.]

[Footnote 339: _Dramatic Records_, 63; _Accounts_, _passim_.]

[Footnote 340: _Accounts_, _passim_. Feuillerat, 475, names Thomas Cornwallis as Groom Porter in 1603. But there was no such post at the Revels. Cornwallis was Groom Porter of the Chamber.]

[Footnote 341: Cunningham, 209, 217; _Declared Accounts_, _passim_; _S. P. D. Jac. I_, x. p. 178; xxxi. p. 410; lviii. p. 652; lxii. p. 17; lxviii. p. 110; Collier, i. 347, 363; Devon, 118.]

[Footnote 342: _Abstract_, 8.]

[Footnote 343: Cf. ch. vi.]

[Footnote 344: Henslowe took receipts for licensing fees from Michael Bloomson, John Carnab, Robert Hassard, William Hatto, Robert Johnson, William Playstowe, Thomas and William Stonnard, Richard Veale, and Thomas Whittle, 'men' of the Master of the Revels, between 1595 and 1602. Johnson was of Leatherhead, where Tilney had a house. I regret to say that on one occasion Henslowe thought fit to make a loan to William Stonnard (Greg, _Henslowe_, i. 3, 5, 12, 28, 39, 40, 46, 54, 72, 83, 85, 103, 109, 116, 117, 121, 129, 132, 148, 160, 161; _Dulwich MSS._ i. 37).]

[Footnote 345: _Declared Account._]

[Footnote 346: Chamberlain, 120. A proposal (_c._ 1589) for the establishment of an 'Accademye for the studye of Antiquitye and Historye' (_Anglia_, xxxii. 261) contains a suggestion that its library might be housed in St. John's.]

[Footnote 347: _S. P. D._ (22. xi. 04); _1 London and Middlesex Arch. Soc. Trans._ iii. 157.]

[Footnote 348: The gift to Aubigny is recited in the Treasury warrants of 10 Nov. 1610 and 31 March 1611 for lodging allowances cited below.]

[Footnote 349: _Lansd. MS._ 156, f. 368.]

[Footnote 350: _S. P. D. Jac. I_, xxviii, p. 391. The authority was given by a privy seal.]

[Footnote 351: Cf. ch. xvii.]

[Footnote 352: Cunningham, xxi, from _Audit Office Enrolments_, ii. 108. The authority is a Treasury warrant to auditors of 10 Nov. 1910.]

[Footnote 353: _S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxv. 2, contains (i) a letter of 1 July 1611 from Buck to Salisbury's secretary, Dudley Norton, asking for authority to be given by privy seal and not a mere letter to the auditors, and enclosing (ii) a letter to Salisbury, putting his case and pleading that Tilney had £35, 'besides £100 for a better recompense which had not been continued to Buck, (iii) a copy of a Treasury warrant to the auditors for the £30, dated 31 March 1611, and (iv) a draft of the privy seal asked for. Chalmers, 490, printed (ii) and (iii), and Cunningham printed a draft for (ii) from _Harl. MS. 6850_ in _Sh. Soc. Papers_, iv. 143. On 19 Dec. 1612 the Treasury sent a warrant to the auditors to allow the £50 (Cunningham, xxii). But Buck's preference for a privy seal was sound, for at a later date Auditor Beale complained that authority for the lodging allowances was wanting (_Dramatic Records_, 84; Herbert, 129).]

[Footnote 354: _Chamber Accounts._ Similar expenses for earlier years were charged in the _Revels Accounts_; cf. p. 89.]

[Footnote 355: There was yet another change later. Herbert said after the Restoration (_Dramatic Records_, 39; Herbert, 108) that the Office had been 'time out of minde' in the parish of St. Mary Bowe, in the ward of Cheap. St. Peter's Hill is divided between Queen Hithe and Castle Baynard wards.]

[Footnote 356: Chalmers, _Apology_, 531, 628, has an engraving from a block of the Revels Office seal or stamp, as used by Thomas Killigrew under Charles II. It has Killigrew's arms with the legend 'Sigill: Offic: Iocor: Mascar: Et Revell: Dni: Reg.']

[Footnote 357: Cf. p. 98. The verses to the _Britannia_ are headed 'Georgij Buc Equitis aurati Reg[iorum] Sp[ectaculorum] C[uratoris] Heptastichon'.]

[Footnote 358: This is sometimes ascribed to a younger Buck, but the manuscript copy in _Cott. MS. Tiberius_, E. x, is dated from the Revels Office on St. Peter's Hill in 1619.]

[Footnote 359: Feuillerat, _Lyly_, 237; _Dramatic Records_, 11, 39; Herbert, 7, 102; _S. P. D. Jac. I_ (cxxxii, p. 432). Chalmers, 492, says, 'Yet, this was not old Ben, as it seemeth, who died in 1637, but young Ben, who died in 1635'. This seems rather improbable. Was Jonson already a suitor for the post in 1601, when Dekker wrote _Satiromastix_, iv. i. 244, 'Master Horace ... I have some cossens Garman at Court, shall beget you the reuersion of the Master of the Kings Reuels, or else be his Lord of Misrule now at Christmas'?]

[Footnote 360: _S. P. D. Jac. I_, cxxviii. 96.]

[Footnote 361: Murray, ii. 193, from _Inner Temple MS._ 515; cf. Collier, i. 402; Gildersleeve, 64.]

[Footnote 362: Herbert, 67, 109.]

IV

PAGEANTRY

[_Bibliographical Note._ A mass of material on the progresses
is collected in J. Nichols, _Progresses of Elizabeth_ (ed. 2,
1823) and _Progresses of James I_ (1828), which may be
supplemented by W. Kelly, _Royal Progresses and Visits to
Leicester_ (1884), and F. S. Boas, _University Drama in the
Tudor Age_ (1914). Most of the contemporary descriptions of
entertainments reprinted by Nichols will be found noticed in
chh. xxiii, xxiv, and a more complete itinerary than his is
attempted in Appendix A with the help of the dates of Privy
Council meetings and the accounts of the Treasurer of the
Chamber, which he did not utilize. Most of the hosts of royalty
can be identified with the aid of the _Victoria County
Histories_, and of other local histories, to which some guide
is afforded by J. P. Anderson, _Book of British Topography_
(1881), of which a new edition is looked for, C. Gross,
_Bibliography of Municipal History_ (1897), and A. L.
Humphreys, _Handbook to County Bibliography_ (1917). Three of
the most important home counties are described in J. Norden's
_Middlesex_ (1593), _Herts_ (1598), and _Essex_ (1840), and the
main roads are surveyed at a date rather after the period in J.
Ogilby, _Britannia_ (1675), the progenitor of a long line of
road-books.

On the Lord Mayor's show, J. G. Nichols, _London Pageants_
(1837), and F. W. Fairholt, _Lord Mayor's Pageants_ (1843-4)
and _The Civic Garland_ (1845), may be consulted; and further
details can be gleaned from C. M. Clode, _Memorials of the
Guild of Merchant Taylors_ (1875) and _Early History of the
Guild of Merchant Taylors_ (1888), and other publications of
individual guilds.

Elizabethan hunting is dealt with by D. H. Madden, _The Diary
of Master William Silence_ (1897). There is no adequate history
of the dance; the chapter by A. F. Sieveking in _Shakespeare's
England_, ii. 437, and the sources there cited may be
consulted. The tilt has been recently dealt with by F. H.
Cripps-Day, _The History of the Tournament_ (1918), and R. C.
Clephan, _The Tournament, Its Periods and Phases_ (1919), which
appeared after this chapter was written. Contemporary records
are collected by W. Segar, _Honor Military and Civill_ (1602),
and armature is learnedly treated in J. Hewitt, _Ancient Armour
and Weapons in Europe_ (1855-60), and C. Ffoulkes, _Armour and
Weapons_ (1909).

R. Withington, _English Pageantry_ (vol. i, 1918), also
published since this chapter was written, deals more fully with
the origins and mediaeval history of pageantry than with its
Elizabethan examples.]

The tradition of pageantry had its roots deep in the Middle Ages. But it made its appeal also to the Renaissance, of which nothing was more characteristic than the passion for colour and all the splendid external vesture of things; while the ranging curiosity of the Renaissance was able to stimulate into fresh life the fading imaginative energies of the past, weaving its new fancies from classical mythology, from epic and pastoral, from the explorations of history and folk-lore, no less delightfully than incongruously, into the old mediaeval warp of scripture and hagiology and allegory. So that the Tudor kings and queens came and went about their public affairs in a constant atmosphere of make-believe, with a sibyl lurking in every court-yard and gateway, and a satyr in the boscage of every park, to turn the ceremonies of welcome and farewell, without which sovereigns must not move, by the arts of song and dance and mimetic dialogue, to favour and to prettiness.