Chapter III: Introduction: The Boy Companies (1)

[_Bibliographical Note._--The first systematic investigation
into the history of the companies was that of F. G. Fleay,
which, after tentative sketches in his _Shakespeare Manual_
(1876) and _Life and Work of Shakespeare_ (1886), took shape in
his _Chronicle History of the Stage_ (1890). Little is added by
the compilations of A. Albrecht, _Das Englische Kindertheater_
(1883), H. Maas, _Die Kindertruppen_ (1901) and _Äussere
Geschichte der Englischen Theatertruppen_ (1907), and J. A.
Nairn, _Boy-Actors under the Tudors and Stewarts_ (_Trans. of
Royal Soc. of Lit._ xxxii). W. W. Greg, _Henslowe’s Diary_
(1904–8), made a careful study of all the companies which had
relations with Philip Henslowe, and modified or corrected many
of Fleay’s results. An account of the chief London companies
is in A. H. Thorndike, _Shakespeare’s Theater_ (1916), and
utilizes some new material collected in recent years. W.
Creizenach, _Schauspiele der Englischen Komödianten_ (1889),
and E. Herz, _Englische Schauspieler und Englisches Schauspiel_
(1903), have summarized the records of the travels of English
actors in Germany. C. W. Wallace, besides his special work on
the Chapel, has published the records of several theatrical
lawsuits in _Advance Sheets from Shakespeare, the Globe, and
Blackfriars_ (1909), in _Nebraska University Studies_, ix
(1909), 287; x (1910), 261; xiii (1913), 1, and in _The Swan
Theatre and the Earl of Pembroke’s Servants_ (1911, _Englische
Studien_, xliii. 340); the present writer has completed the
information drawn from the _Chamber Accounts_ in P. Cunningham’s
_Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court_ (1842) by
articles in _M. L. R._ ii (1906), 1; iv (1909), 153 (cf. App.
B); and a number of documents, new and old, including the texts
of all the patents issued to companies, have been carefully
edited in vol. i of the _Collections of the Malone Society_
(1907–11). Finally, J. T. Murray, _English Dramatic Companies_
(1910), has collected the published notices of performances
in the provinces, added others from the municipal archives
of Barnstaple, Bristol, Coventry, Dover, Exeter, Gloucester,
Marlborough, Norwich, Plymouth, Shrewsbury, Southampton,
Winchester, and York, and on the basis of these constructed
valuable accounts of all the London and provincial companies
between 1558 and 1642. Most of the present chapter was written
before Murray’s book appeared, but it has been carefully
revised with the aid of his new material. I have not thought
it necessary to refer to my original provincial sources, where
they are included in his convenient Appendix G, but in using
his book it should be borne in mind that he has made a good
many omissions in carrying data from this Appendix to the
tables of provincial visits, which he gives for each company.
For a few places I have had the advantage of sources not drawn
upon by Murray, and these should be treated as the references
for any facts as regards such places not discoverable in
Murray’s Appendix. They are:--for Belvoir and other houses
of the Earls of Rutland, _Rutland MSS._ (_Hist. MSS._), iv.
260; for the house of Richard Bertie and his wife the Duchess
of Suffolk at Grimsthorpe, _Ancaster MSS._ (_Hist. MSS._),
459; for Wollaton, the house of Francis Willoughby, _Middleton
MSS._ (_Hist. MSS._), 446; for Maldon and Saffron Walden in
Essex, A. Clark’s extracts in _10 Notes and Queries_, vii.
181, 342, 422; viii. 43; xii. 41; for Newcastle-on-Tyne, G. B.
Richardson, _Reprints of Rare Tracts_, vol. iii, and _10 N.
Q._ xii. 222; for Reading, _Hist. MSS._ xi. 177; for Oxford,
F. S. Boas in _Fortnightly Review_ (Aug. 1913; Aug. 1918; May
1920); for Stratford, J. O. Halliwell, _Stratford-upon-Avon in
the Time of the Shakespeares, illustrated by Extracts from the
Council-Books_ (1864); for Weymouth, H. J. Moule, _Weymouth and
Melcombe Regis Documents_ (1883), 136; for Dunwich, _Various
Collections_ (_Hist. MSS._), vii. 82; for Aldeburgh, Suffolk,
C. C. Stopes, _William Hunnis_, 314. References for a few other
scattered items are in the foot-notes. The warning should
be given that the dates assigned to some of the provincial
performances are approximate, and may be in error within a
year or so either way. For this there are more reasons than
one. The zealous antiquaries who have made extracts from local
records have not realized that precise dates might be of
value, and have often named a year without indicating whether
it represents the calendar year (Circumcision style) or the
calendar year (Annunciation style) in which a performance fell,
or the calendar year in which a regnal, mayoral, or accounting
year, in which the performance fell, began or ended. When they
are clearly dealing with accounting years, they do not always
indicate whether these ended at Michaelmas or at some other
date. They sometimes give only the year of a performance, when
they might have given, precisely or approximately, the month
and day of the month as well. But it is fair to add that the
accounts of City Chamberlains and similar officers, from which
the notices of plays are generally derived, are not always so
kept as to render precise dating feasible. Some accountants
specify the days, others the weeks to which their entries
relate; others put their entries in chronological order and
date some of them, so that it is possible to fix the dates of
the rest within limits; others again render accounts analysed
under heads, grouping all payments to players perhaps under a
head of ‘Gifts and Rewards’, and in such cases you cannot be
sure that the companies are even entered in the order of their
visits, and if months and days are not specified, cannot learn
more than the year to which a visit belongs. Where, for whatever
reason, I can only assign a performance to its accounting year,
I generally give it under the calendar year in which the account
ends. This, in the case of a London company and of a Michaelmas
year (much the commonest year for municipal accounts), is pretty
safe, as the touring season was roughly July to September. Some
accounting years (Coventry, Marlborough, Stratford-on-Avon) end
later still, but if, as at Bath, the year ends about Midsummer,
it is often quite a toss-up to which of two years an entry
belongs. In the case of Leicester performances before 1603, I
have combined the indications of Michaelmas years in M. Bateson,
_Leicester Records_, vol. iii, with those of calendar years in
W. Kelly, _Notices Illustrative of the Drama_ (1865), 185, and
distinguished between performances before and after Michaelmas.
I hope Kelly has not misled me, and that he found evidence in
the entries for his dating. After 1603 he is the only source. I
do not think that the amount of error which has crept into the
following chapter from the various causes described is likely to
be at all considerable. I have been as careful as possible and
most of Murray’s own extracting is excellently done. I should,
however, add that the Ipswich dates, as given both here and by
Murray, ii. 287. from _Hist. MSS._ ix. i, 248, are unreliable,
because some of the rolls from which they are taken contain
membranes properly belonging to those for other years; cf. my
notes on Leicester’s (pp. 89, 91), Queen’s (p. 106), Warwick’s
(p. 99), Derby’s (p. 120), King’s (p. 209).]

A. INTRODUCTION

The present chapter contains detailed chronicles--too often, I fear, lapsing into arid annals of performances at Court or in the provinces--of all the companies traceable in London during any year between 1558 and 1616. The household and other establishments to which the companies were attached are taken as the basis of classification. This principle is open to criticism. Certainly it has not always the advantage of presenting economic units. It is improbable that there was any continuity as regards membership between the bodies of actors successively appearing, often after long intervals, under the names of Sussex or Hunsdon or Derby. On the other hand, particular associations of actors can sometimes be discerned as holding together under a change of patrons. Thus between 1571 and 1583 Laurence and John Dutton seem to have led a single company, which earned the nickname of the Chameleons, first in the service of Sir Robert Lane and then, turn by turn, in that of the Earls of Lincoln, Warwick, and Oxford. The real successors, again, of the Derby’s men of 1593 are less the Derby’s men of 1595–1618 than the Hunsdon’s men of 1594–1603, who in course of time became the King’s men without any breach of their unity as a trading association. Nevertheless, an arrangement under patrons is a practicable one, since companies nearly always appear under the names of their patrons in official documents, while an arrangement under trading associations is not. Actors are a restless folk, and the history of the Admiral’s men, or the Queen’s Revels, or the Lady Elizabeth’s men, will show how constantly their business organizations were disturbed by the coming and going of individuals, and by the breaking and reconstruction of the agreements on which they were based. It is but rarely that we have any clue to these intricacies; and I have therefore followed the households as the best available guides, indicating breaches of continuity and affiliations, where these appear to exist, and adopting as far as possible an order which, without pretence of being scientific, will bring each household under consideration roughly at the point at which its servants become of the greatest significance to the general history of the stage. The method may perhaps be described as that of a λαμπαδηφορία.

A study of the succession of the companies gives rise to a few general considerations. During the earlier years of Elizabeth’s reign the drama is under the domination of the boy companies. This may be in part due to the long-standing humanistic tradition of the Renaissance, although the lead is in fact taken not so much by schoolboys in the stricter sense, as by the trained musical establishments of the royal chapels and still more that of the St. Paul’s choir under Sebastian Westcott. More important points perhaps are, that the Gentlemen of the Chapel, who had been prominent under Henry VIII, had ceased to perform, that the royal Interluders had been allowed to decay, and that the other professional companies had not yet found a permanent economic basis in London, while their literary accomplishment was still upon a popular rather than a courtly level. Whatever the cause or causes, the fact is undeniable. Out of seventy-eight rewards for Court performances between 1558 and 1576, twenty-one went to the Paul’s boys, fifteen to the royal chapels, and ten to schoolboys, making a total of forty-six, as against only thirty-two paid to adult companies. And if the first half of this period only be taken, the disproportion is still greater, for by 1567 the Paul’s boys had received eleven rewards, other boys two, and the adult companies six. A complete reversal of this position coincides rather markedly with the building of the first permanent theatres in 1576. Between 1576 and 1583 the adult companies had thirty-nine rewards and the boys only seventeen. There is also a rapid growth in the number of companies. Before 1576 the Earl of Leicester’s men and the Duttons were alone conspicuous. After 1576 the entertainment of a London company seems to become a regular practice with those great officers the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Admiral, as well as with special favourites of the Queen, such as the Earl of Leicester himself or the Earl of Oxford. Stockwood in 1578 speaks of ‘eighte ordinarie places’ in the City as occupied by the players. A Privy Council order of the same year limits the right to perform to six companies selected to take part in the Court festivities at Christmas, namely Leicester’s men, Warwick’s, Sussex’s, Essex’s, and the Children of the Chapel and St. Paul’s. Gabriel Harvey, writing to Edmund Spenser of the publication of his virelays in the following summer, says:

‘Ye have preiudished my good name for ever in thrustinge me
thus on the stage to make tryall of my extemporall faculty,
and to play Wylsons or Tarletons parte. I suppose thou wilt
go nighe hande shortelye to sende my lorde of Lycesters or my
lorde of Warwickes, Vawsis, or my lord Ritches players, or sum
other freshe starteupp comedanties unto me for sum newe devised
interlude, or sum maltconceivid comedye fitt for the Theater, or
sum other paintid stage whereat thou and thy lively copesmates
in London maye lawghe ther mouthes and bellyes full for pence or
twoepence apeece.’[1]

Doubtless many of this mushroom brood of ‘freshe starteupp comedanties’ never succeeded in making good their permanent footing in the metropolis. Lord Vaux’s men, whom Harvey mentions, were never fortunate enough to be summoned to Court; and the same may be said of Lord Arundel’s men, Lord Berkeley’s, and Lord Abergavenny’s. Such men, after their cast for fortune, had to drift away into the provinces, and pad the hoof on the hard roads once more.

The next septennial period, 1583–90, witnessed the extinction, for a decade or so, of the boy companies, in spite of the new impulse given to the latter by the activity as a playwright of John Lyly. Of forty-five Court payments made during these years, thirty apparently went to men and only fifteen to boys. This ultimate success of the professional organizations may largely have been due to their employment of such university wits as Marlowe, Peele, Greene, Lodge, and Nashe in the writing of plays, with which Lyly could be challenged on his own ground before the Court, while a sufficient supply of chronicle histories and other popular stuff could still be kept on the boards to tickle the ears of the groundlings. The undisputed pre-eminence lay during this period with the Queen’s men, who made within it no less than twenty-one appearances at Court. This company enjoyed the prestige of the royal livery, transferred to it from the now defunct Interluders, which had a ready effect in the unloosing of municipal pockets. And at its foundation in 1583 it incorporated, in addition to Tarlton, whose origin is unknown, the leading members of the pre-existing companies: Wilson and Laneham from Leicester’s, Adams from Sussex’s, and John Dutton from Oxford’s. The former fellows of these lucky ones were naturally hardly able to maintain their standing. In January 1587 Leicester’s, Oxford’s, and the Admiral’s were still setting up their bills side by side with those of the Queen’s.[2] But the first two are not heard of at Court again, and even the Admiral’s were hardly able to make a show except by coalition with other companies. Thus we find the Admiral’s combining with Hunsdon’s in 1585, and with Strange’s perhaps from 1589 onwards, and it became the destiny of this last alliance, under the leadership of Edward Alleyn, to dispossess the Queen’s men, after the death of Tarlton in 1588, from their pride of place. The fall of the Queen’s men was sudden. In 1590–1 they gave four Court plays to two by their rivals; in 1591–2 they gave one, and their rivals six. In their turn they appear to have been reduced to forming a coalition with Lord Sussex’s men.

The plague-years of 1592–4 brought disaster, chaos, and change into the theatrical world. Only the briefest London seasons were possible. The necessities of travelling led to further combinations and recombinations of groups, one of which may have given rise to the ephemeral existence of Lord Pembroke’s men. And, by the time the public health was restored, the Queen’s had reconciled themselves to a provincial existence, and continued until 1603 to make their harvest of the royal name, as their predecessors in title had done, without returning to London at all. The combination of which Alleyn had been the centre broke up, and its component elements reconstituted themselves as the two great companies of the Chamberlain’s and the Admiral’s men. Between these there was a vigorous rivalry, which sometimes showed itself in lawsuits, sometimes in the more legitimate form of competing plays on similar themes. Thus a popular sentiment offended by the Chamberlain’s men in _1 Henry IV_ was at once appealed to by the Admiral’s with _Sir John Oldcastle_. And when the Admiral’s scored a success by their representation of forest life in _Robin Hood_, the Chamberlain’s were quickly ready to counter with _As You Like It_. I think the Chamberlain’s secured the better position of the two. They had their Burbadge to pit against the reputation of Alleyn; they had their honey-tongued Shakespeare; and they had a business organization which gave them a greater stability of membership than any company in the hands of Henslowe was likely to secure. If one may once more use the statistics of Court performances as a criterion, they are found to have appeared thirty-two times and their rivals only twenty times from 1594 to 1603. Between them the Chamberlain’s and the Admiral’s enjoyed for some years a practical monopoly of the London stage, which received an official recognition by the action of the Privy Council in 1597. But this state of things did not long continue. Ambitious companies, such as Pembroke’s, disregarded the directions of the Council. Derby’s men, Worcester’s, Hertford’s, one by one obtained at least a temporary footing at Court, and in 1602 the influence of the Earl of Oxford was strong enough to bring about the admission to a permanent home in London of a third company made up of his own and Worcester’s servants. Even more dangerous, perhaps, to the monopoly was the revival of the boy companies, Paul’s in 1599 and the Chapel in 1600. The imps not only took by their novelty in the eyes of a younger generation of play-goers. They began a warfare of satire, in which they ‘berattled the common stages’ with a vigour and dexterity that betray the malice of the poets against the players which had been a motive in their rehabilitation.[3]

No material change took place at the coming of James. The three adult companies, the Chamberlain’s, the Admiral’s, Worcester’s, passed respectively under the patronage of James, Prince Henry, and Queen Anne.[4] On the death of Prince Henry in 1612 his place was taken by the Elector Palatine. The Children of the Chapel also received the patronage of Queen Anne, as Children of the Queen’s Revels. The competition for popular favour continued severe. Dekker refers to it in 1608 and the preacher Crashaw in 1610.[5] It is to be noticed, however, that Dekker speaks only of ‘a deadly war’ between ‘three houses’, presumably regarding the boy companies as negligible. And in fact these companies were on the wane. By 1609 the Queen’s Revels, though still in existence, had suffered from the wearing off of novelty, from the tendency of boys to grow older, from the plague-seasons of 1603–4 and 1608–9, which they were less well equipped than the better financed adults to withstand, from the indiscretions and quarrels of their managers, and from the loss of the Blackfriars, of which the King’s men had secured possession.[6] The Paul’s boys had been bought off by the payment of a ‘dead rent’ or blackmail to the Master. A third company, the King’s Revels, had been started, but had failed to establish itself.[7] The three houses were not, indeed, left with an undisputed field. Advantage was taken of the predilection of the younger members of the royal family for the drama, and patents were obtained, in 1610 for a Duke of York’s company, and in 1611 for a Lady Elizabeth’s company. These also had but a frail life. In 1613 the Lady Elizabeth’s and the Queen’s Revels coalesced under the dangerous wardenship of Henslowe. In 1615 the Duke of York’s, now Prince Charles’s, men joined the combination. And finally in 1616 the Prince’s men were left alone to make up the tale of four London companies, and the Lady Elizabeth’s and the Queen’s Revels disappeared into the provinces. The list of men summoned before the Privy Council in March 1615 to account for playing in Lent contains the names of the leaders of the four companies, the King’s, the Queen’s, the Palsgrave’s, and the Prince’s. The King’s played at the Globe and Blackfriars, the Queen’s at the Red Bull, whence they moved in 1617 to the Cockpit, the Palsgrave’s at the Fortune, and the Prince’s at the Hope. The supremacy of the King’s men during 1603–16 was undisputed. Of two hundred and ninety-nine plays rewarded at Court for that period, they gave one hundred and seventy-seven, the Prince’s men forty-seven, the Queen’s men twenty-eight, the Duke of York’s men twenty, the Lady Elizabeth’s men nine, the Queen’s Revels boys fifteen, and the Paul’s boys three. Their plays, moreover, were those usually selected for performance before James himself. It is possible, however, that the Red Bull and the Fortune were better able to hold their own against the Globe when it came to attracting a popular audience.

B. THE BOY COMPANIES

i. Children of Paul’s.
ii. Children of the Chapel and Queen’s Revels.
iii. Children of Windsor.
iv. Children of the King’s Revels.
v. Children of Bristol.
vi. Westminster School.
vii. Eton College.
viii. Merchant Taylors School.
ix. Earl of Leicester’s Boys.
x. Earl of Oxford’s Boys.
xi. Mr. Stanley’s Boys.

i. THE CHILDREN OF PAUL’S

_High Masters of Grammar School_:--William Lily (1509–22); John Ritwise (1522–32); Richard Jones (1532–49); Thomas Freeman (1549–59); John Cook (1559–73); William Malim (1573–81); John Harrison (1581–96); Richard Mulcaster (1596–1608).

_Masters of Choir School_:--? Thomas Hikeman (_c._ 1521); John Redford (_c._ 1540);? Thomas Mulliner (?); Sebastian Westcott (> 1557–1582); Thomas Giles (1584–1590 <); Edward Pearce (> 1600–1606 <).

[_Bibliographical Note._--The documents bearing upon the early
history of the two cathedral schools, often confused, are
printed and discussed by A. F. Leach in _St. Paul’s School
before Colet_ (_Archaeologia_, lxii. 1. 191) and in _Journal of
Education_ (1909), 503. M. F. J. McDonnell, _A History of St.
Paul’s School_ (1909), carries on the narrative of the grammar
school. The official chroniclers of the cathedral, perhaps
owing to the loss of archives in the Great Fire, have given
no connected account of the choir school; with the material
available on the dramatic side they appear to be unfamiliar.
Valuable contributions are W. H. G. Flood, _Master Sebastian_,
in _Musical Antiquary_, iii. 149; iv. 187; and H. N. Hillebrand,
_Sebastian Westcote, Dramatist and Master of the Children of
Paul’s_ (1915, _J. G. P._ xiv. 568). Little is added to the
papers on _Plays Acted by the Children of Paul’s and Music in
St. Paul’s Cathedral_ in W. S. Simpson, _Gleanings from Old St.
Paul’s_ (1889), 101, 155, by J. S. Bumpus, _The Organists and
Composers of St. Paul’s Cathedral_ (1891), and W. M. Sinclair,
_Memorials of St. Paul’s Cathedral_ (1909).]

Mr. Leach has succeeded in tracing the grammar school, as part of the establishment of St. Paul’s Cathedral, to the beginning of the twelfth century. It was then located in the south-east corner of the churchyard, near the bell-tower, and here it remained to 1512, when it was rebuilt, endowed, and reorganized on humanist lines by Dean Colet, and thereafter to 1876, when it was transferred to Horsham in Sussex. Originally the master was one of the canons; but by the beginning of the thirteenth century this officer had taken on the name of chancellor, and the general supervision of the actual schoolmaster, a vicar choral, was only one of his functions. Distinct from the grammar school was the choir school, for which the responsible dignitary was not the chancellor, but the precentor, in whose hands the appointment of a master of the song school rested.[8] There was, however, a third branch of the cathedral organization also concerned with the training of boys. The almonry or hospital, maintained by the chapter for the relief of the poor, seems to have been established at the end of the twelfth century, and statutes of about the same date make it the duty of a canon residentiary to assist in the maintenance of its _pueri elemosinarii_, and prescribe the special services to be rendered them at their great annual ceremony of the Boy Bishop on Innocents’ Day.[9] In the thirteenth century the supervision of these boys was in the hands of another subordinate official, appointed by the chapter and known as the almoner. The number of the boys was then eight; it was afterwards increased, apparently in 1358, to ten.[10] The almoner is required to provide for their literary and moral education, and their liturgical duties are defined as consisting of standing in pairs at the corners of the choir and carrying candles.[11] A later version of the statutes provides for their musical education, and it is clear that these _pueri elemosinarii_ were in fact identical with or formed the nucleus of the boys of the song school.[12] During the sixteenth century the posts of almoner and master of the song school, although technically distinct, were in practice held together, and the holder was ordinarily a member of the supplementary cathedral establishment known as the College of Minor Canons.[13] To this college had been appropriated the parish church of St. Gregory, on the south side of St. Paul’s, just west of the Chapter or Convocation House, and here the song school was already housed by the twelfth century.[14] The college had also a common hall on the north of the cathedral, near the Pardon churchyard; and hard by was the almonry in Paternoster Row.[15] The statutes left the almoner the option of either giving the boys their literary education himself, or sending them elsewhere. It naturally proved convenient to send them to the grammar school, and the almoners claimed that they had a right to admission without fees.[16] On the other side we find the grammar school boys directed by Colet to attend the Boy Bishop ceremony and make their offerings.[17] Evidently there was much give and take between song school and grammar school.

As early as 1378 the scholars of Paul’s are said to have prepared a play of the History of the Old Testament for public representation at Christmas.[18] Whether they took a share in the other miracles recorded in mediaeval London, it is impossible to say. A century and a half later the boys of the grammar school, during the mastership of John Ritwise, are found contributing interludes, in the humanist fashion, to the entertainment of the Court. On 10 November 1527 they gave an anti-Lutheran play in Latin and French before the King and the ambassadors of Francis I, and in the following year the _Phormio_ before Wolsey, who also saw them, if Anthony Wood can be trusted, in a _Dido_ written by Ritwise himself.[19] There is no evidence that Ritwise’s successors followed his example by bringing their pupils to Court; and the next performances by Paul’s boys, which can be definitely traced, began a quarter of a century later, and were under the control of Sebastian Westcott, master of the song school, and were therefore presumably given by boys of that school. Westcott in 1545 was a Yeoman of the Chamber at Court.[20] He was ‘scolemaister of Powles’ by New Year’s Day 1557, when he presented a manuscript book of ditties to Queen Mary.[21] Five years earlier, he had brought children to Hatfield, to give a play before the Princess Elizabeth; and the chances are that these were the Paul’s boys.[22] With him came one Heywood, who may fairly be identified with John Heywood the dramatist; and this enables us, more conjecturally, to reduce a little further the gap in the dramatic history of the Paul’s choir, for some years before, in March 1538, Heywood had already received a reward for playing an interlude with ‘his children’ before the Lady Mary.[23] There is nothing beyond this phrase to suggest that Heywood had a company of his own, and it is not probable that he was ever himself master of the choir school.[24] But he may very well have supplied them with plays, both in Westcott’s time and also in that of his predecessor John Redford. Several of Heywood’s verses are preserved in a manuscript, which also contains Redford’s _Wyt and Science_ and fragments of other interludes, not improbably intended for performance by the boys under his charge.[25] A play ‘of childerne sett owte by Mr. Haywood’ at Court during the spring of 1553 may also belong to the Paul’s boys.[26] Certain performances ascribed to them at Hatfield, during the Princess Elizabeth’s residence there in her sister’s reign, have of late fallen under suspicion of being apocryphal.[27]

From the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign Westcott’s theatrical enterprise stands out clearly enough. On 7 August 1559 the Queen was entertained by the Earl of Arundel at Nonsuch with ‘a play of the chylderyn of Powlles and ther Master Se[bastian], Master Phelypes, and Master Haywod’.[28] If ‘Master Phelypes’ was the John Philip or Phillips who wrote _Patient Grissell_ (_c._ 1566), this play may also belong to the Paul’s repertory. Heywood could not adapt himself again to a Protestant England, and soon left the country. Sebastian Westcott was more fortunate. In 1560 he was appointed as Head of the College of Minor Canons or Sub-dean.[29] Shortly afterwards, being unable to accept the religious settlement, he was sentenced to deprivation of his offices, which included that of organist, but escaped through the personal influence of Elizabeth, in spite of some searchings of the heart of Bishop Grindal as to his suitability to be an instructor of youth.[30] In fact he succeeded in remaining songmaster of Paul’s for the next twenty-three years, and during that period brought his boys to Court no less than twenty-seven times, furnishing a far larger share of the royal Christmas entertainment, especially during the first decade of the reign, than any other single company. The chronicle of his plays must now be given. There was one at each of the Christmases of 1560–1 and 1561–2, one between 6 January and 9 March 1562, and one at the Christmas of 1562–3.[31] During the next winter the plague stopped London plays. At the Christmas of 1564–5 there were two by the Paul’s boys, of which the second fell on 2 January, and at that of 1565–6 three, two at Court and one at the Lady Cecilia’s lodging in the Savoy. There were two again at each of the Christmases of 1566–7 and 1567–8, and one on 1 January 1569. During the winter of 1569–70 the company was, exceptionally, absent from Court. They reappeared on 28 December 1570, and again at Shrovetide (25–7 February) 1571. On 28 December 1571 they gave the ‘tragedy’ of _Iphigenia_, which Professor Wallace identifies with the comedy called _The Bugbears_, but which might, for the matter of that, be Lady Lumley’s translation from the Greek of Euripides. At the Christmas of 1572–3 they played before 7 January. On 27 December 1573 they gave _Alcmaeon_. They played on 2 February 1575, and a misfortune which befell them in the same year is recorded in a letter of 3 December from the Privy Council, which sets out that ‘one of Sebastianes boyes, being one of his principall plaiers, is lately stolen and conveyed from him’, and instructs no less personages than the Master of the Rolls and Dr. Wilson, one of the Masters of Requests, to examine the persons whom he suspected and proceed according to law with them.[32] Five days later the Court of Aldermen drew up a protest against Westcott’s continued Romish tendencies.[33] The next Court performance by the boys was on 6 January 1576. On 1 January 1577 they gave _Error_, and on 19 February _Titus and Gisippus_. They played on 29 December 1577, and one wonders whether it was anything amiss with that performance which led to an entry in the Acts of the Privy Council for the same day that ‘Sebastian was committid to the Marshalsea’.[34] Whether this was so or not, the Paul’s boys were included in the list of companies authorized to practise publicly in the City for the following Christmas. On 1 January 1579 they gave _The Marriage of Mind and Measure_, on 3 January 1580 _Scipio Africanus_, and on 6 January 1581 _Pompey_. A play on 26 December 1581 is anonymous, but may possibly be the _Cupid and Psyche_ mentioned as ‘plaid at Paules’ in Gosson’s _Playes Confuted_ of 1582.[35]

In the course of 1582 Sebastian Westcott died, and this event led to an important development in the dramatic activities of the boys.[36] Hitherto their performances, when not at Court, had been in their own quarters ‘at Paules’, although the notice of 1578, as well as Gosson’s reference, suggests that the public were not altogether excluded from their rehearsals. Probably they used their singing school, which may have been still, as in the twelfth century, the church of St. Gregory itself.[37] This privacy, even if something of a convention, had perhaps enabled them to utilize the services of the grammar school when they had occasion to make a display of erudition.[38] After Westcott’s death, however, they appear to have followed the example of the Chapel, who had already in 1576 taken a step in the direction of professionalism, by transferring their performances to Farrant’s newly opened theatre at the Blackfriars. Here, if the rather difficult evidence can be trusted, the Paul’s boys appear to have joined them, and to have formed part of a composite company, to which Lord Oxford’s boys also contributed, and which produced the _Campaspe_ and _Sapho and Phao_ of the earl’s follower John Lyly. Lyly took these plays to Court on 1 January and 3 March 1584, and Henry Evans, who was also associated with the enterprise, took a play called _Agamemnon and Ulysses_ on 27 December. On all three occasions the official patron of the company was the Earl of Oxford. In _Agamemnon and Ulysses_ it must be doubtful whether the Paul’s boys had any share, for in the spring of 1584 the Blackfriars theatre ceased to be available, and the combination probably broke up.[39] This, however, was far from being the end of Lyly’s connexion with the boys, for the title-pages of no less than five of his later plays acknowledge them as the presenters. They had, indeed, a four years’ period of renewed activity at Court, under the mastership of Thomas Giles, who, being already almoner, became Master of the Song School on 22 May 1584, and in the following year received a royal commission to ‘take up’ boys for the choir, analogous to that ordinarily granted to masters of the Chapel Children.[40] There is no specific mention of plays in the document, but its whole basis is in the service which the boys may be called upon to do the Queen in music and singing. Under Giles the company appeared at Court nine times during four winter seasons; on 26 February 1587, on 1 January and 2 February 1588, on 27 December 1588, 1 January and 12 January 1589, and on 28 December 1589, 1 January and 6 January 1590. The title-pages of Lyly’s _Endymion_, _Galathea_, and _Midas_ assign the representation of these plays at Court to a 2 February, a 1 January, and a 6 January respectively. _Endymion_ must therefore belong to 1588 and _Midas_ to 1590; for _Galathea_ the most probable of the three years is 1588. _Mother Bombie_ and _Love’s Metamorphosis_ can be less precisely dated, but doubtless belong to the period 1587–90. At some time or other, and probably before 1590, the Paul’s boys performed a play of _Meleager_, of which an abstract only, without author’s name, is preserved. It is not, I think, to be supposed that Lyly, although he happened to be a grandson of the first High Master of Colet’s school, had any official connexion either with that establishment or with the choir school. It is true that Gabriel Harvey says of him in 1589, ‘He hath not played the Vicemaster of Poules and the Foolemaster of the Theatre for naughtes’.[41] But this is merely Harvey’s jesting on the old dramatic sense of the term ‘vice’, and the probabilities are that Lyly’s relation as dramatist to Giles as responsible manager of the company was much that which had formerly existed between John Heywood and Sebastian Westcott. Nevertheless, it was this connexion which ultimately brought the Paul’s plays to a standstill. Lyly was one of the literary men employed about 1589 to answer the Martin Marprelate pamphleteers in their own vein, and to this end he availed himself of the Paul’s stage, apparently with the result that, when it suited the government to disavow its instruments, that stage was incontinently suppressed.[42] The reason may be conjectural, but the fact is undoubted. The Paul’s boys disappear from the Court records after 1590. In 1591 the printer of _Endymion_ writes in his preface that ‘Since the Plaies in Paules were dissolved, there are certaine Commedies come to my handes by chaunce’, and the prolongation of this dissolution is witnessed to in 1596 by Thomas Nashe, who in his chaff of Gabriel Harvey’s anticipated practice in the Arches says, ‘Then we neede neuer wish the Playes at Powles vp againe, but if we were wearie with walking, and loth to goe too farre to seeke sport, into the Arches we might step, and heare him plead; which would bee a merrier Comedie than euer was old Mother _Bomby_’.[43]

A last theatrical period opened for the boys with the appointment about 1600 of a new master. This was one Edward Pearce or Piers, who had become a Gentleman of the Chapel on 16 March 1589, and by 15 August 1600, when his successor was sworn in, had ‘yealded up his place for the Mastership of the children of Poules’.[44] I am tempted to believe that in reviving the plays Pearce had the encouragement of Richard Mulcaster, who had become High Master of the grammar school in 1596, and during his earlier mastership of Merchant Taylors had on several occasions brought his boys to Court. Pearce is first found in the Treasurer of the Chamber’s Accounts as payee for a performance on 1 January 1601, but several of the extant plays produced during this section of the company’s career are of earlier date, and one of them, Marston’s _I Antonio and Mellida_, can hardly be later than 1599. A stage direction of this play apparently records the names of two of the performers as Cole and Norwood.[45] The Paul’s boys, therefore, were ‘up again’ before their rivals of the Chapel, who cannot be shown to have begun in the Blackfriars under Henry Evans until 1600.[46] This being so, they were probably also responsible for Marston’s revision in 1599 of _Histriomastix,_ which by giving offence to Ben Jonson, led him to satire Marston’s style in _Every Man Out of His Humour_, and so introduced the ‘war of the theatres’.[47] Before the end of 1600 they had probably added to their repertory Chapman’s _Bussy d’Ambois_, and certainly _The Maid’s Metamorphosis_, _The Wisdom of Dr. Dodipoll_, and _Jack Drum’s Entertainment_, all three of which were entered on the Stationers’ Register, and the first two printed, during that year. _Jack Drum’s Entertainment_ followed in 1601 and contains the following interesting passage of autobiography:[48]

_Sir Edward Fortune._ I saw the Children of _Powles_ last night,
And troth they pleas’d me prettie, prettie well:
The Apes in time will doe it handsomely.

_Planet._ I faith, I like the audience that frequenteth there
With much applause: A man shall not be chokte
With the stench of Garlick; nor be pasted
To the barmie Iacket of a Beer-brewer.

_Brabant Junior._ ’Tis a good, gentle audience, and I hope the boies
Will come one day into the Court of requests.

_Brabant Senior._ I, and they had good Plaies. But they produce
Such mustie fopperies of antiquitie,
And do not sute the humorous ages backs,
With clothes in fashion.

The criticism, being a self-criticism, must not be taken too seriously. So far as published plays are concerned, _Histriomastix_ is the only one to which it applies. In Marston, Chapman, and Middleton the company had enlisted vigorous young playwrights, who were probably not sorry to be free from the yoke of the professional actors, and appear to have followed the exceptional policy of printing some at least of their new plays as soon as they were produced.

On 11 March 1601, two months after the boys made their first bow at Court, the Lord Mayor was ordered by the Privy Council to suppress plays ‘at Powles’ during Lent. It is to be inferred that they were, as of old, acting in their singing school. Confirmation is provided by a curious note appended by William Percy to his manuscript volume of plays, presumably in sending them to be considered with a view to production by the boys. The plays bear dates in 1601–3, but it can hardly be taken for granted that they were in fact produced by the Paul’s or any other company. The note runs:

A note to the Master of Children of Powles.

Memorandum, that if any of the fine and formost of these
Pastorals and Comoedyes conteyned in this volume shall but
overeach in length (the children not to begin before foure,
after prayers, and the gates of Powles shutting at six) the
tyme of supper, that then in tyme and place convenient, you do
let passe some of the songs, and make the consort the shorter;
for I suppose these plaies be somewhat too long for that place.
Howsoever, on your own experience, and at your best direction,
be it. Farewell to you all.[49]

Both parts of Marston’s _Antonio and Mellida_ were entered on the Stationers’ Register in the autumn of 1601 and printed in 1602. The second part may have been on the stage during 1601, and in the same year the boys probably produced John Marston’s _What You Will_, and certainly played ‘privately’, as the Chamberlain’s men did ‘publicly’, _Satiromastix_ in which Dekker, with a hand from Marston, brought his swashing blow against the redoubtable Jonson. This also was registered in 1601 and printed in 1602. There is no sign of the boys at Court in the winter of 1601–2. In the course of 1602 their play of _Blurt Master Constable_, by Middleton, was registered and printed. They were at Court on 1 January 1603, for the last time before Elizabeth, and on 20 February 1604, for the first time before James. Either the choir school or the grammar school boys took part in the pageant speeches at the coronation triumph on 15 March 1604.[50] To the year 1604 probably belongs _Westward Ho!_ which introduced to the company, in collaboration with Dekker, a new writer, John Webster. _Northward Ho!_ by the same authors, followed in 1605. The company was not at Court for the winter of 1604–5, but during that of 1605–6 they gave two plays before the Princes Henry and Charles. For these the payee was not Pearce, but Edward Kirkham, who is described in the Treasurer of the Chamber’s account as ‘one of the Mr^{es} of the Childeren of Pawles’. Kirkham, who was Yeoman of the Revels, had until recently been a manager of the Children of the Revels at the Blackfriars. It may have been the disgrace brought upon these by _Eastward Ho!_ in the course of 1605 that led him to transfer his activities elsewhere.[51] With him he seems to have brought Marston’s _The Fawn_, probably written in 1604 and ascribed in the first of the two editions of 1606 to the Queen’s Revels alone, in the second to them ‘and since at Poules’. The charms of partnership with Kirkham were not, however, sufficient to induce Pearce to continue his enterprise. The last traceable appearance of the Paul’s boys was on 30 July 1606, when they gave _The Abuses_ before James and King Christian of Denmark.[52] Probably the plays were discontinued not long afterwards. This would account for the large number of play-books belonging to the company which reached the hands of the publishers in 1607 and 1608. The earlier policy of giving plays to the press immediately after production does not seem to have endured beyond 1602. Those now printed, in addition to _Bussy D’Ambois_, _What You Will_, _Westward Ho!_ and _Northward Ho!_ already mentioned, included Middleton’s _Michaelmas Term_, _The Phoenix_, _A Mad World, my Masters_, and _A Trick to Catch the Old One_, together with _The Puritan_, very likely also by Middleton, and _The Woman Hater_, the first work of Francis Beaumont. _The Puritan_ can be dated, from a chronological allusion, in 1606. The title-pages of _The Woman Hater_, _A Mad World, my Masters_, and _A Trick to Catch the Old One_ specify them to have been ‘lately’ acted. It is apparent from the second quarto of _A Trick to Catch the Old One_ that the Children of the Blackfriars took it over and presented it at Court on 1 January 1609. This was probably part of a bargain as to which we have another record. Pearce may have had at the back of his mind a notion of reopening his theatre some day. But it is given in evidence in the lawsuit of _Keysar v. Burbadge_ in 1610 that, while it was still closed, he was approached on behalf of the other ‘private’ houses in London, those of the Blackfriars and the Whitefriars, and offered a ‘dead rent’ of £20 a year, ‘that there might be a cessation of playeinge and playes to be acted in the said howse neere S^t. Paules Church’.[53] This must have been in the winter of 1608–9, just as the Revels company was migrating from the Blackfriars to the Whitefriars. The agent was Philip Rosseter who, with Robert Keysar, was financially interested in the Revels company. When the King’s men began to occupy the Blackfriars in the autumn of 1609, they took on responsibility for half the dead rent, but whether the arrangement survived the lawsuit of 1610 is unknown.

ii. THE CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AND OF THE QUEEN’S REVELS

The Children of the Chapel (1501–1603).
_Masters of the Children_: William Newark (1493–1509),
William Cornish (1509–23), William Crane (1523–45), Richard
Bower (1545–61), Richard Edwardes (1561–6), William Hunnis
(1566–97), Richard Farrant (acting, 1577–80), Nathaniel Giles
(1597–1634).

The Children of the Queen’s Revels (1603–5).

The Children of the Revels (1605–6).
_Masters_: Henry Evans, Edward Kirkham, and others.

The Children of the Blackfriars (1606–9).

The Children of the Whitefriars (1609–10).
_Masters_: Robert Keysar and others.

The Children of the Queen’s Revels (1610–16).
_Masters_: Philip Rosseter and others.

[_Bibliographical Note._--Official records of the Chapel are
to be found in E. F. Rimbault, _The Old Cheque Book of the
Chapel Royal_ (1872, _Camden Soc._). Most of the material for
the sixteenth-century part of the present section was collected
before the publication of C. W. Wallace, _The Evolution of the
English Drama up to Shakespeare_ (1912, cited as Wallace, i),
which has, however, been valuable for purposes of revision.
J. M. Manly, _The Children of the Chapel Royal and their
Masters_ (1910, _C. H._ vi. 279), W. H. Flood, _Queen Mary’s
Chapel Royal_ (_E. H. R._ xxxiii. 83), H. M. Hildebrand, _The
Early History of the Chapel Royal_ (1920, _M. P._ xviii. 233),
are useful contributions. The chief published sources for
the seventeenth century are three lawsuits discovered by J.
Greenstreet and printed in full by F. G. Fleay, _A Chronicle
History of the London Stage_ (1890), 127, 210, 223. These are
(a) _Clifton v. Robinson and Others_ (Star Chamber, 1601), (b)
_Evans v. Kirkham_ (Chancery, May–June 1612), cited as _E. v.
K._, with Fleay’s pages, and (c) _Kirkham v. Painton and Others_
(Chancery, July–Nov. 1612), cited as _K. v. P._ Not much beyond
dubious hypothesis is added by C. W. Wallace, _The Children of
the Chapel at Blackfriars_ (1908, cited as Wallace, ii). But
Professor Wallace published an additional suit of importance,
(d) _Keysar v. Burbadge and Others_ (Court of Requests,
Feb.–June 1610), in _Nebraska University Studies_ (1910), x.
336, cited as _K. v. B._ This is apparently one of twelve suits
other than Greenstreet’s, which he claims (ii. 36) to have
found, with other material, which may alter the story. In the
meantime, I see no reason to depart from the main outlines
sketched in my article on _Court Performances under James the
First_ (1909, _M. L. R._ iv. 153).]

The Chapel was an ancient part of the establishment of the Household, traceable far back into the twelfth century.[54] Up to the end of the fourteenth, we hear only of chaplains and clerks. These were respectively priests and laymen, and the principal chaplain came to bear the title of Dean.[55] Children of the Chapel first appear under Henry IV, who appointed a chaplain to act as Master of Grammar for them in 1401.[56] In 1420 comes the first of a series of royal commissions authorizing the impressment of boys for the Chapel service, and in 1444 the first appointment of a Master of the Children, John Plummer, by patent.[57] It is probably to the known tastes of Henry VI that the high level of musical accomplishment, which had been reached by the singers of the Chapel during the next reign was due.[58] The status and duties of the Chapel are set out with full detail in the _Liber Niger_ about 1478, at which date the establishment consisted of a Dean, six Chaplains, twenty Clerks, two Yeomen or Epistolers, and eight Children. These were instructed by a Master of Song, chosen by the Dean from ‘the seyd felyshipp of Chapell’, and a Master of Grammar, whose services were also available for the royal Henchmen.[59] There is no further record of the Master of Grammar; but with this exception the establishment continued to exist on much the same footing, apart from some increase of numbers, up to the seventeenth century.[60] Although subject to some general supervision from the Lord Chamberlain and to that extent part of the Chamber, it was largely a self-contained organization under its own Dean. Elizabeth, however, left the post of Dean vacant, and the responsibility of the Lord Chamberlain then became more direct.[61] It probably did not follow, at any rate in its full numbers, a progress, but moved with the Court to the larger ‘standing houses’, except possibly to Windsor where there was a separate musical establishment in St. George’s Chapel.[62] It does not seem, at any rate in Tudor times, to have had any relation to the collegiate chapel of St. Stephen in the old palace of Westminster.[63] The number of Children varied between eight and ten up to 1526, when it was finally fixed by Henry VIII at twelve.[64] The chaplains and clerks were collectively known in the sixteenth century as the Gentlemen of the Chapel, and the most important of them, next to one who acted as subdean, was the Master of the Children, who trained them in music and, as time went on, also formed them into a dramatic company. The Master generally held office under a patent during pleasure, and was entitled in addition to his fee of 7½_d._ a day or £91 8_s._ 1½_d._ a year as Gentleman and his share in the general ‘rewards’ of the Chapel, to a special Exchequer annuity of 40 marks (£26 13_s._ 4_d._), raised in 1526 to £40, ‘pro exhibicione puerorum’, which is further defined in 1510 as ‘pro exhibicione vesturarum et lectorum’ and in 1523 as ‘pro sustencione et diettes’.[65] To this, moreover, several other payments came to be added in the course of Henry VIII’s reign. Originally the Chapel dined and supped in the royal hall; but this proved inconvenient, and a money allowance from the Cofferer of the Household was substituted, which was fixed in 1544 at 1_s._ a day for each Gentleman and 2_s._ a week for each Child.[66] The allowance for the Children was afterwards raised to 6_d._ a day.[67] Long before this, however, the Masters had succeeded in obtaining an exceptional allowance of 8_d._ a week for the breakfast of each Child, which was reckoned as making £16 a year and paid them in monthly instalments of 26_s._ 8_d._ by the Treasurer of the Chamber. The costs of the Masters in their journeys for the impressment of Children were also recouped by the Treasurer of the Chamber. And from him they also received rewards of 20_s._ when _Audivi vocem_ was sung on All Saints’ Day, £6 13_s._ 4_d._ for the Children’s feast of St. Nicholas on 6 December, and 40_s._ when _Gloria in Excelsis_ was sung on Christmas and St. John’s Days. These were, of course, over and above any special rewards received for dramatic performances.[68] In the provision of _vesturae_ the Masters were helped by the issue from the Great Wardrobe of black and tawny camlet gowns, yellow satin coats, and Milan bonnets, which presumably constituted the festal and penitential arrays of the choir.[69] The boys themselves do not appear to have received any wages but, when their voices had broken, the King made provision for them at the University or otherwise, and until this could be done, the Treasurer of the Chamber sometimes paid allowances to the Master or some other Gentleman for their maintenance and instruction.[70]

The earlier Masters were John Plummer (1444–55), Henry Abyngdon (1455–78), Gilbert Banaster (1478–83?), probably John Melyonek (1483–5), Lawrence Squier (1486–93), and William Newark (1493–1509).[71] Some of these have left a musical or literary reputation, and Banaster is said to have written an interlude in 1482.[72] But until the end of this period only occasional traces of dramatic performances by the Chapel can be discerned. An alleged play by the Gentlemen at the Christmas of 1485 cannot be verified.[73] The first recorded performance, therefore, is one of the disguisings at the wedding of Prince Arthur and Katharine of Spain in 1501, in which two of the children were concealed in mermaids ‘singing right sweetly and with quaint hermony’.[74]