Chapter V: Introduction: The Boy Companies (3)

Sir Thomas Lake appears to have been under the impression that two companies were concerned, and that the ‘matters of France’ were not played by the Children of Blackfriars. If so, we must suppose that _Byron_ was originally produced elsewhere, perhaps by the King’s Revels, and transferred to the Blackfriars after ‘reformation’ by the Council. M. de la Boderie, however, writes as if the same company were responsible for both plays, and perhaps it is on the whole more probable that Sir Thomas Lake misunderstood the situation. I feel very little doubt that the maker of the play on the mines was once more Marston, who was certainly summoned before the Privy Council and committed to Newgate, on some offence not specified in the extant record, on 8 June 1608.[168] And this was probably the end of his stormy connexion with the stage. He disappeared from the Blackfriars and from literary life, leaving _The Insatiate Countess_ unfinished, and selling the share in the syndicate which he had acquired from Evans about 1603 to Robert Keysar for £100. Before making his purchase, Keysar, who tells us that he put a value of £600 on the whole of the enterprise, got an assurance, as he thought, from the King’s men that they would not come to any arrangement with Henry Evans which would prejudice his interests.[169] This the King’s men afterwards denied, and as a matter of fact the negotiations, tentatively opened as far back as 1603, between Evans and Burbadge for a surrender of the lease were now coming to a head, and its actual surrender took place about August 1608.[170] On the ninth of that month Burbadge executed fresh leases of the theatre to a new syndicate representing the King’s men.[171] The circumstances leading up to Evans’s part in this transaction became subsequently the subject of hostile criticism by Kirkham, who asserted that the lease, which Alexander Hawkins held in trust, had been stolen from his custody by Mrs. Evans, and that the surrender was effected with the fraudulent intention of excluding Kirkham from the profits to which he was entitled under the settlement of 1602.[172] According to Evans, however, Kirkham was at least implicitly a consenting party, for it was he who, after the King’s inhibition had brought the profits to an end, grew weary of the undertaking and initiated measures for winding it up. On or about 26 July 1608 he had had the ‘apparells, properties and goods’ of the syndicate appraised and an equitable division made. When some of the boys were committed to prison he had ‘said he would deale no more with yt, “for”, quoth he, “yt is a base thing”, or vsed wordes to such, or very like effect’. And he had ‘delivered up their commission, which he had vnder the greate seale aucthorising them to plaie, and discharged divers of the partners and poetts’. In view of this, Evans claimed that he was fully justified in coming to terms with Burbadge.[173]

After all, the King’s anger proved only a flash in the pan. Perhaps the company travelled during the summer of 1608, if they, and not the King’s Revels, were ‘the Children of the Revells’ rewarded at Leicester on 21 August.[174] But by the following Christmas they were in London, and with Keysar as their payee gave three plays at Court, where they had not put in an appearance since 1604–5. Two of these were on 1 and 4 January 1609. As they still bore the name of Children of Blackfriars, they had presumably remained on sufferance in their old theatre, which the King’s men may not have been in a hurry to occupy during a plague-stricken period.[175] But when a new season opened in the autumn of 1609, new quarters became necessary. These they found at Whitefriars, which had been vacated by the failure of the short-lived King’s Revels company, and it was as the Children of Whitefriars that Keysar brought them to Court for no less than five plays during the winter of 1609–10. He had now enlisted a partner in Philip Rosseter, one of the lutenists of the royal household, who carried out a scheme, with the co-operation of the King’s men, for buying off with a ‘dead rent’ the possible competition of the Paul’s boys, who had closed their doors about 1606, but might at any moment open them again.[176] More than this, through the influence of Sir Thomas Monson, Rosseter was successful in obtaining a new patent, dated on 4 January 1610, by which the Children once more became entitled to call themselves Children of the Queen’s Revels.[177] It ran as follows:

[Sidenote: De concessione Roberto Daborne & aliis.]

Iames by the grace of God &c., To all Maiors Sheriffes Iustices
of peace Bayliffes Constables and to all other our Officers
Ministers and loving Subiects to whome theis presentes shall
come Greeting. Whereas the Quene our deerest wyfe hathe for
hir pleasure, and recreacion, when shee shall thinke it fitt
to have any Playes or Shewes, appoynted hir servantes Robert
Daborne, Phillippe Rosseter, Iohn Tarbock, Richard Iones, and
Robert Browne to prouide and bring vpp a convenient nomber of
Children whoe shalbe called Children of hir Revelles, knowe ye
that wee haue appoynted and authorised, and by theis presentes
do authorize and appoynte the said Robert Daborne, Phillipp
Rosseter, Iohn Tarbock, Richard Iones, and Robert Browne from
tyme to tyme to provide keepe and bring vpp a convenient nomber
of children, and them to practice and exercise in the quality of
playing, by the name of Children of the Revells to the Queene,
within the white ffryers in the Suburbs of our Citty of London,
or in any other convenyent place where they shall thinke fitt
for that purpose. Wherfore wee will and commaund you and euery
of you to whome it shall appertayne to permitt her said seruants
to keepe a conuenient nomber of Children by the name of the
Children of hir Revells, and them to exercise in the qualitye
of playing according to hir pleasure, And theis our lettres
patentes shalbe your sufficient warrant in this behaulfe.
Wittnes our self at Westminster, the ffourth daye of Ianuary.
per breve de priuato sigillo.

Of the new syndicate Browne and Jones were old professional actors who had belonged to the Admiral’s men a quarter of a century before, and had since been prominent, Browne in particular, as organizers of English companies for travel in Germany. Daborne was or became a playwright. Of Tarbock I know nothing; he may have been a nominee of Keysar, whose own name, perhaps for reasons of diplomacy, does not appear in the patent. He may, of course, have retired, but a lawsuit which he brought in 1610 suggests that his connexion with the company was not altogether broken. The Whitefriars had not the tradition of the Blackfriars, and Keysar was aggrieved at the surrender of the Blackfriars lease by Evans over his head. On 8 February 1610 he laid a bill in the Court of Requests against the housekeepers of the King’s men, claiming a share in their profits since the date of surrender, which he estimated at £1,500, on the strength of the one-sixth interest in the lease assigned by Evans to Marston and by Marston to him.[178] He asserted that he had kept boys two years in the hope of playing ‘vpon the ceasing of the generall sicknes’, and had spent £500 on that and on making provision in the house, and had now, at a loss of £1,000, had to disperse ‘a companye of the moste exparte and skilful actors within the realme of England to the number of eighteane or twentye persons all or moste of them trayned vp in that service, in the raigne of the late Queene Elizabeth for ten yeares togeather and afterwardes preferred into her Maiesties service to be the Chilldren of her Revells’.[179] Burbadge and his fellows denied that they had made £1,500, or that they had attempted to defraud Keysar either about the surrender of the lease or, as he also alleged, the ‘dead rent’ to Paul’s, and they pointed out that his losses were really due to the plague. He could recover his share of the theatrical stock from Evans. Evans had had no legal right to assign his interest under the lease. As only the pleadings in the case and not the depositions or the order of the court are extant, we do not know what Evans, who was to be a witness, had to say.[180] The fact that one of the new Blackfriars leases of 1608 was to a Thomas Evans leaves the transaction between Henry Evans and Burbadge not altogether free from a suspicion of bad faith. Kirkham also found that he had been either hasty or outwitted in 1608, and as the deaths of Rastall and Kendall in that year had left him the sole claimant to any interest under the arrangement of 1602, he had recourse to litigation. In the course of 1611 and 1612 he brought a ‘multiplicitie of suites’ against Evans and Hawkins, and was finally non-suited in the King’s Bench.[181] Then, in May 1612, Evans in his turn brought a Chancery action against Kirkham, in the hope of getting his bond of 1602 cancelled, and thus securing himself against any further persecution for petty breaches of the articles of agreement. The result of this is unknown, but in the course of it many of the incidents of 1600–8 were brought into question, and Kirkham claimed that not merely had Evans shut him out in 1604 from certain rooms in the Blackfriars which he was entitled to use, but that by the surrender of the lease in 1608 he had lost profits which he estimated at £60 a year.[182] Finally in July 1612 Kirkham brought a Chancery action against Evans, Burbadge, and John Heminges, and also against the widow of Alexander Hawkins and Edward Painton, to whom she was now married, for reinstatement in his moiety of the lease. In this suit much of the same ground was again traversed, but the Court refused to grant him any relief.

It is not altogether easy to disentangle the plays produced at the Blackfriars under Keysar from those produced immediately afterwards at the Whitefriars. The only title-page which definitely names the Children of the Blackfriars is that of Jonson’s _The Case is Altered_ (1609). But Chapman’s _Byron_ (1608) and _May Day_ (1611) and Middleton’s _Your Five Gallants_ (n.d.?1608) also claim to have been acted at the Blackfriars. The Q_{1} of Middleton’s _A Trick to Catch the Old One_ (1608) assigns it to Paul’s; the Q_{2} both to Paul’s and Blackfriars, with an indication of a Court performance on New Year’s Day, which can only be that of 1 January 1609. This play, therefore, must have been taken over from Paul’s, when that house closed in 1606 or 1607. As Middleton is not generally found writing for Blackfriars, _Your Five Gallants_ may have been acquired in the same way. It is also extremely likely that Chapman’s _Bussy d’Ambois_ passed from Paul’s to Blackfriars on its way to the King’s men. No name of company or theatre is attached to Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Knight of the Burning Pestle_ (1613) or to _The Faithful Shepherdess_ (_c._ 1609). But the _K. B. P._ was published with an epistle to Keysar as its preserver and can be securely dated in 1607–8; it refers to the house in which it was played as having been open for seven years, which just fits the Blackfriars. _The Faithful Shepherdess_ is of 1608–9 and a boys’ play; the commendatory verses by Field, Jonson, and Chapman justify an attribution to the company with which they had to do. Chapman’s _The Widow’s Tears_ (1612) had been staged both at Blackfriars and at Whitefriars before publication, and was probably therefore produced shortly before the company moved house. The greatest difficulty is Jonson’s _Epicoene_ (S. R. 20 September 1610). No edition is known to be extant earlier than the Folio of 1616, in which Jonson ascribed the production to ‘1609’ and to the Children of the Revels. According to the system of dating ordinarily adopted by Jonson in this Folio, ‘1609’ should mean 1609 and not 1609–10. Yet the Children were not entitled to call themselves ‘of the Revels’ during 1609. Either Jonson’s chronology or his memory of the shifting nomenclature of the company has slipped. The actor-list of _Epicoene_ names ‘Nat. Field, Gil. Carie, Hug. Attawel, Ioh. Smith, Will. Barksted, Will. Pen, Ric. Allin, Ioh. Blaney’. Amongst these Field is the sole direct connecting link with the Chapel actor-lists of 1600 and 1601. Keysar’s pleading shows us that from 1600 to 1610 the company had maintained a substantial identity throughout all its phases, as successively Children of the Chapel, Children of the Queen’s Revels, Children of the Blackfriars, Children of the Whitefriars; but part of his grievance is its dispersal, and possibly the continuity with the second Children of the Revels may not have been quite so marked. ‘In processe of time’, say the Burbadges in the _Blackfriars Sharers Papers_ of 1635, ‘the boyes growing up to bee men, which were Underwood, Field, Ostler, and were taken to strengthen the King’s service’.[183] This, which is written in relation to the acquisition of the Blackfriars, is doubtless accurate as regards Ostler and Underwood, and their transfer may reasonably be placed in the winter of 1609–10. But it was not until some years later that Field joined the King’s men.

The career of the second Queen’s Revels, but for the temporary suppression of _Epicoene_ owing to a misconstruction placed on it by Arabella Stuart, was comparatively uneventful. They are recorded at Maidstone as the Children of the Chapel about March 1610. They made no appearance at Court during the following winter, and were again travelling in the following autumn, when they came to Norwich under the leadership of one Ralph Reeve, who showed the patent of 4 January 1610, and at first claimed to be Rosseter, but afterwards admitted that he was not. As he could show no letters of deputation, he was not allowed to play, although he received a reward on the following day, which was recorded, not quite correctly, as paid to ‘the master of the children of the King’s Revells’. By 29 August Barksted and Carey had left the company to join the newly formed Lady Elizabeth’s men. We may therefore place at some time before this date Barksted’s completion of Marston’s _Insatiate Countess_, which was published in 1613 as ‘acted at Whitefriars’. The entry in the Stationer’s Register of Field’s _A Woman is a Weathercock_ (1612) on 23 November 1611 shows that he also had begun to experiment in authorship. As this had been acted at Court, as well as by the Queen’s Revels at Whitefriars, it probably dates back to the winter of 1609–10. The company returned to court on 5 January 1612 with Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Cupid’s Revenge_, and the Clerk of the Revels entered them as the Children of Whitefriars.[184] The travels of 1612 were under the leadership of Nicholas Long, and on 20 May another _contretemps_ occurred at Norwich. The instrument of deputation was forthcoming on this occasion, but the mayor chose to interpret the patent as giving authority only to teach and instruct children, and not to perform with them; and so once again ‘the Master of the Kings Revells’ got his reward of 20s., but was not allowed to play. Between Michaelmas and Christmas ‘the queens maiesties revellers’ were at Bristol, and at some time during 1612–13 ‘two of the company of the childeren of Revells’ received a reward at Coventry. Conceivably the provincial company of Reeve and Long was a distinct organization from that in London. Rosseter was payee for four performances at Court during the winter of 1612–13. On the first occasion, in the course of November, the play was Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Coxcomb_; on 1 January and again on 9 January it was _Cupid’s Revenge_; and on 27 February it was _The Widow’s Tears_. In one version of the _Chamber Accounts_ the company appears this year as the Children of the Queen’s Revels, but in another under the obsolete designation of Children of the Chapel. In addition to the plays already named, Chapman’s _Revenge of Bussy_ had been on the Whitefriars stage before it was published in 1613; and it is conceivable that Chapman’s _Chabot_ and Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Monsieur Thomas_ and _The Nightwalker_ may be Queen’s Revels plays of 1610–13. They may also, indeed, be Lady Elizabeth’s plays of 1613–16, but during this period the Lady Elizabeth and the Queen’s Revels appear to have been practically amalgamated, under an arrangement made between Henslowe and Rosseter in March 1613 and then modified, first in 1614, and again on the addition of Prince Charles’s men to the ‘combine’ in 1615. Yet in some way the Children of the Revels maintained a separate individuality, at least in theory, during these years, as may be seen from the patent of 3 June 1615, which licensed Rosseter and Reeve, together with Robert Jones and Philip Kingman, to build a new Blackfriars theatre in the house known as Porter’s Hall.[185] The main purpose of this undertaking was expressed to be the provision of a new house for the Children of the Queen’s Revels instead of the Whitefriars, where Rosseter’s lease was now expired, although it was also contemplated that use might be made of it by the Prince’s and the Lady Elizabeth’s players. Porter’s Hall only stood for a short time before civic hostility procured its demolition, and the single play, which we can be fairly confident that the Children of the Revels gave in it, is Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Scornful Lady_. This presumably fell after the amalgamation under Henslowe broke up about the time of his death early in 1616. Field appears to have joined the King’s men about 1615. The Queen’s Revels dropped out of London theatrical life. Their provincial travels under Nicholas Long had apparently terminated in 1612, as in 1614 he is found using the patent of the Lady Elizabeth’s men (q. v.) in the provinces. But some members of the company seem to have gone travelling during the period of troubled relations with Henslowe, and are traceable at Coventry on 7 October 1615, and at Nottingham in February 1616 and again later in 1616–17. On 31 October 1617 a new Queen’s Revel’s company was formed by Rosseter, in association with Nicholas Long, Robert Lee of the Queen’s men, and William Perry of the King’s Revels.[186]

iii. THE CHILDREN OF WINDSOR

_Masters of the Children_:--Richard Farrant (1564–80),
Nathaniel Giles (1595–1634).

The Chapel Royal at Windsor was served by an ecclesiastical college, which had been in existence as far back as the reign of Henry I, and had subsequently been resettled as St. George’s Chapel in connexion with the establishment of the Order of the Garter by Edward III, finally incorporated under Edward IV, and exempted from dissolution at the Reformation. Edward III had provided for a warden, who afterwards came to be called dean, 12 canons, 13 priest vicars, 4 clerks, 6 boy choristers, and 26 ‘poor knights’. The boys were to be ‘endued with clear and tuneable voices’, and to succeed the clerks as their voices changed. Their number was altered from time to time; during the greater part of Elizabeth’s reign it stood at 10. Each had an annual fee of £3 6_s._ 8_d._ They were lodged within the Castle, in a chamber north of the chapel, and next to a building founded by James Denton in 1520, known as the ‘New Commons’. This is now merged in the canons’ houses, but a doorway is inscribed ‘Edes pro Sacellaenorum et Choristarum conviviis extructae A. D. 1519’. There were also an epistoler and a gospeller.[187] The music was ‘useyd after ye order and maner of ye quenes chappell’.[188] One of the clerks, whose position corresponded to that of the Gentlemen of the household Chapel Royal, was appointed by the Chapter of the College to act as Organist and Master of the Children. The College was privileged, like the Chapel Royal itself, to recruit its choir by impressment. A commission for this purpose, issued on 8 March 1560, merely repeats the terms of one granted by Mary, which itself had confirmed earlier grants by Henry VIII and Edward VI.[189]

The Master at Elizabeth’s accession was one Preston.[190] But he was deprived, as unwilling to accept the new ecclesiastical settlement; and the first Master under whom the choristers appear to have acted at Court was Richard Farrant. He had been a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal from about 1553, but was replaced on 24 April 1564, doubtless on his appointment as Master at Windsor.[191] On the following 30 September the Chapter assigned a chantry to the teacher of the choristers for an increase of his maintenance.[192] On 5 November 1570, Farrant was reappointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, but evidently did not resign his Mastership.[193] On 11 February 1567 he began a series of plays with the ‘Children of Windsor’ at Court, which was continued at Shrovetide 1568, on 22 February and 27 December 1569, at Shrovetide 1571, on 1 January 1572, when he gave _Ajax and Ulysses_, on 1 January 1573, on 6 January 1574, when he gave _Quintus Fabius_, on 6 January 1575, when he gave _King Xerxes_, and on 27 December 1575. With the winter of 1576–7 the entries of his name in the accounts of the Treasurer take a new form; he is no longer ‘M^r of the children of the Chappell at Wyndsore’ but ‘M^r of the children of the Chappell’. The Revels Accounts for the same season record that on 6 January 1577 _Mutius Scaevola_ was played at Court by ‘the Children of Windsore and the Chappell’, and it is a fair inference that Farrant, in addition to exercising his own office, was now also acting as deputy to William Hunnis, the Master by patent of the Children of the Chapel Royal, and had made up a combined company from both choirs for the Christmas delectation of the Queen.[194] This interpretation of the facts was confirmed when Professor Feuillerat was able to show from the Loseley archives that in 1576 Farrant had taken a lease of rooms in the Blackfriars from Sir William More and had converted them into the first Blackfriars theatre.[195] Whether boys from Windsor continued to take a share in the performances by the Chapel during 1577–8, 1578–9, and 1579–80, for all of which Farrant was payee, we do not know; there is no further mention of them as actors in the Court accounts, although they accompanied the singing men from Windsor to Reading during the progress of 1576.[196] Farrant died on 30 November 1580, leaving a widow Anne, who in 1582 obtained the reversion of a small lease from the Crown, and was involved in controversies with Sir William More over the Blackfriars tenement at least up to 1587.[197] He had acquired some reputation as a musician, and amongst his surviving compositions are a few which may have been intended for use in plays.[198] Farrant was succeeded at Windsor by Nathaniel Giles, but only after an interval of either five or fifteen years. Ashmole reports Giles’s monument as crediting him with forty-nine years’ service as Master of St. George’s before his death in 1634.[199] There must be an inaccuracy, either here or in the date of 1 October ’37 Eliz.’ (1595) upon a copy of his indenture of appointment by the Windsor chapter, which is amongst Ashmole’s papers.[200] This recites that the chapter ‘are now destitute of an experte and cunnynge man’, and that Giles ‘is well contented to come and serve’ them. He is granted from the previous Michaelmas to the end of his life ‘the Roome and place of a Clerk within the said ffree Chappell and to be one of the Players on the Organes there, and also the office of Instructor and Master of the ten Children or Choristers of the same ffree Chappell, And the office of tutor, creansor, or governor of the same tenn Children or Coristers’. He is to have an annuity of £81 6s. 8d. and ‘tholde comons howse’, wherein John Mundie lately dwelt, which he is to hold on the same terms as ‘one Richarde ffarrante enjoyed the same’ at a rent of £1 6_s._ 8_d._ His fee is to be ‘over and besides all such giftes, rewardes or benevolences as from time to time during the naturall lief of him the said Nathanaell Gyles shall be given bestowed or ymployed to or upon the Choristers for singinge of Balattes, playes or for the like respects whatsoever’. He is to maintain the children and to supply vacancies, ‘her Maiesties comission for the taking of Children which her highnes hath alredie graunted to the said Dean and Canons being allowed vnto him the said Nathanaell Gyles for that purpose’. Evidently the door was left open for a resumption of theatrical activities, such as was afterwards brought about at the London Chapel Royal during the Mastership of Giles there; but there is no proof that such a resumption ever took place at Windsor. It is perhaps a fanciful conjecture that the boys may have helped with _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ about 1600.[201]

iv. CHILDREN OF THE KING’S REVELS

_Masters_:--Martin Slater and others.

[_Bibliographical Note._--The chief source of information
is J. Greenstreet, _The Whitefriars Theatre in the Time of
Shakspere_ (_N. S. S. Trans. 1887–92_, 269), which gives
the text of the bill and answer in _Androwes v. Slater_
(1609, Chancery).]

The accident of litigation brings into light a company of boys, who appear to have acted for a brief and troubled period, which probably ended in 1608 or early in 1609. The story is told by one George Androwes a silk-weaver of London, and begins in February 1608. At that date a part of the dissolved Whitefriars monastery was held, in contemplation of a lease from Lord Buckhurst, by Michael Drayton and Thomas Woodford. The lease was actually executed about the following March, and was for six years, eight months, and twenty days, at a rent of £50. Woodford had assigned his interest to one Lording Barry; and Barry in turn persuaded Androwes to take over a third of it, and to join a syndicate, of which the active manager was Martin Slater, who is described as a citizen and ironmonger of London, but is, of course, well known as an actor in the Admiral’s and other companies. The bill incorporates the terms of Articles of Agreement entered into on 10 March 1608 by Slater on the one hand and Barry, Androwes, and Drayton, together with William Trevell, William Cooke, Edward Sibthorpe, and John Mason, all of London, gentlemen, on the other. They throw a good deal of light upon the business organization of a theatrical enterprise. Slater is to have a sixth part of the net profits of ‘any playes, showes, interludes, musique, or such like exercises’ in the Whitefriars play-house or elsewhere, together with lodging for himself and his family on the premises, and any profits that can be made in the house ‘either by wine, beere, ale, tobacco, wood, coales, or any such commoditie’. When the ‘pattent for playinge’ shall be renewed, Slater’s name is to be joined in it with Drayton’s, because ‘if any restrainte of their playinge shall happen by reason of the plague or other wise, it shalbe for more creditt of the whole company that the said Martyn shall travel with the children, and acquainte the magistrates with their busines’. During any such travel his allowance is to be increased to a share and a half, no apparel, books, or other property of the company is to be removed without the consent of the sharers, and none of them is to print any of the play-books, ‘except the booke of Torrismount, and that playe not to be printed by any before twelve monthes be fully expired’. In order to avoid debt, a sixth part is to be taken up each day of the ‘chardges of the howse’ for the week, including ‘the gatherers, the wages, the childrens bourd, musique, booke keeper, tyreman, tyrewoman, lights, the Maister of the revells’ duties, and all other things needefull and necessary’. The children are to be ‘bound’ for three years to Slater, who undertakes not to part with ‘the said younge men or ladds’ during their apprenticeship except on the consent of his fellow sharers.

The theatrical experience of the syndicate presumably rested with Slater and Drayton. Of Trevell, Cooke, and Sibthorpe I know nothing, except that Trevell, like Woodford, seems still to have had an interest in the lease of the Whitefriars (cf. ch. xvii) in 1621. But Mason and Barry were the authors respectively of _The Turk_ (1610, S. R. 10 March 1609), and _Ram Alley_ (1611, S. R. 9 November 1610), the title-pages of which ascribe them to the children of the King’s Revels, and thereby enable us to give a more definite title to the boys, who are only described in the Chancery pleadings as ‘the Children of the revells there beinge’, that is to say, at the Whitefriars. And we can trace the King’s Revels a little farther back than February 1608 with the aid of the earliest of similar entries on the title-pages of other plays, which are, in the chronological order of publication, Sharpham’s _Cupid’s Whirligig_ (1607, S. R. 29 June 1607), Middleton’s _Family of Love_ (1608, S. R. 12 October 1607), Day’s _Humour Out Of Breath_ (1608, S. R. 12 April 1608), Markham’s (and Machin’s) _The Dumb Knight_ (1608, S. R. 6 October 1608), and Armin’s _Two Maids of Moreclack_ (1609). If Lewis Machin was the author of the anonymous _Every Woman In Her Humour_ (1609), it is possible that this ought to be added to the list. Clearly the boys were playing at least as early as the first half of 1607 and the agreement of 1608 must represent a reconstruction of the original business organization. I do not find anything in the plays to prove an earlier date than 1607, but it is quite conceivable that the King’s Revels may have come into existence as early as 1606, perhaps with the idea of replacing the Queen’s Revels after their disgrace over _The Isle of Gulls_. But if so, the Queen’s Revels managed to hold together under another name, and in fact proved more enduring than their rivals. Mr. Fleay, however, suggests that the King’s Revels were a continuation of the Paul’s boys, and played at the singing-school, and apparently also that they were themselves continued as the Duke of York’s men (_H. of S._ 152, 188, 202, 206). He did not, I think, know of _Androwes v. Slater_, but _Androwes v. Slater_ does not indicate that the King’s Revels were at Whitefriars before 1608; rather the contrary.[202] The dates render Mr. Fleay’s conjectures tempting, although it must be admitted that there is not much evidence. But _The Family of Love_ was played in a round theatre and the Paul’s house was round. The curious description of the Duke of York’s men at Leicester in 1608 as ‘of the White Chapple, London’, might conceivably be a mistake for ‘of the Whitefriars’, but more probably indicates that they came from the Boar’s Head (cf. ch. xvi). ‘The Children of the Revells’ followed them at Leicester on 21 August 1608, but these may have been the Blackfriars children under a not quite official name. A complete search through the Patent Rolls for 1606–8 might disinter the patent for the King’s Revels, which is referred to in the Articles of Agreements; I find no obvious clue to it in the printed index of signet bills. It seems possible that William Barksted (cf. ch. xv) may have belonged to the King’s Revels.

The syndicate did not hold together long. It will be noticed that, in spite of the attempt in the articles to bar the printing of plays, these had begun to reach the stationers again as early as April 1608. The inhibition of 1608 hardly gave the company a chance, and then came the plague. They were probably broken before the end of 1608, and although Mason and Barry had at least the consolation that they had got their own plays staged, other members of the syndicate could only reflect that they had lost their money. And when dissensions broke out, and Slater sued Androwes on a bond of £200 given by the sharers for observance of the articles, and this for defaults which Androwes himself had not committed, it is not surprising that Androwes drew the conclusion that he had been a gull. He took Slater to Chancery, and alleged that he had been asked £90 and paid £70 for his share in the expectation of a profit of £100 a year, and on the understanding that the apparel was worth £400 when it was not worth £5, that he had been led into building and other expenses to the tune of £300, that the lease had been forfeited for non-payment of rent before any assignation had been made to him, and that he had been clearly told by Slater that his obligation was not to extend beyond any breaches of covenant that he might himself commit. Slater denied any responsibility for Androwes’s misunderstandings, and pointed out that he had himself been the principal sufferer by the breakdown of the enterprise, since he and his family of ten had been illegally turned out of the rooms to which they were entitled under the articles of agreement, and were now driven to beg their bread. The view taken by the court is not upon record.

The company which was described as the King’s Revels at Norwich in 1611 and 1612 was travelling under the Queen’s Revels patent of 1610, and was therefore clearly misnamed. But a second King’s Revels company did in fact come into existence through a licence given to William Hovell, William Perry, and Nathan May under the royal signet on 27 February 1615. It performed only in the provinces, and is traceable at Norwich, Coventry, and Leicester. Its warrant was condemned and withdrawn by an order of the Lord Chamberlain on 16 July 1616 (Murray, ii. 343), and in the following year the company seems to have amalgamated with the provincial relics of the Queen’s Revels.

v. CHILDREN OF BRISTOL

_Masters_:--John Daniel (1615–17); Martin Slater, John
Edmonds, Nathaniel Clay (1618).

A signet bill for a patent for a company of Children of Bristol under the patronage of Queen Anne was passed in June 1615, perhaps as a result of her visit to that city in 1613.[203] On 10 July Sir George Buck wrote to John Packer, the Earl of Somerset’s secretary, to say that the grant had been made through the Queen’s influence on behalf of Samuel Daniel, and that he was prepared to assent to it, without prejudice to his rights as Master of the Revels.[204] The actual patent, dated 13 July, is made out to Daniel’s brother John.[205]

[Sidenote: De concessione regardante Iohannem Daniell.]

Iames by the grace of God &c. To all Iustices of peace, Mayors,
Sheriffes, Bayliffes, Constables, headboroughes and other our
lovinge subjectes and Officers greetinge. Knowe yee that wee at
the mocion of our most deerelie loved consort the Queene have
licenced and authorised, And by theise presentes do licence
and authorise, our welbeloved subjectes Iohn Daniell and his
Assignes to entertaine and bringe vp a company of children
and youthes vunder the name and title of the children of her
Maiesties royall Chamber of Bristoll, to vse and exercise the
arte and qualitie of playinge Comedies, histories, Enterludes,
Moralles, Pastoralles, Stageplayes, and such other like, as they
have alreadie studied or hereafter shall studie or vse, aswell
for the solace and delight of our most derely loved Consort the
Queene whensoever they shalbe called, as for the recreacion
of our loving Subiectes, And the said Enterludes or other to
shewe and exercise publiquely to their best commoditie, aswell
in and about our said Citie of Bristoll in such vsuall houses
as themselves shall provide, as other convenient places within
the liberties and freedomes of any other Cittie, vniversitie,
Towne, or Burrowe whatsoever within our Realmes and Dominions,
willing and commaundinge you and every of you, as you tender our
pleasures, not onelie to permitt and suffer them herein without
any your lettes, hinderances, molestacions, and disturbances
during our said pleasure, but alsoe to be aydinge and assistinge
vnto them, yf any wronge be done vnto them or to them offred,
and to allowe them such further curtesies as have bene given
to other of the like qualitie, And alsoe what further grace
and favour you shall show vnto them for our sakes wee shall
take kindly at your handes. Provided alwaies and our will and
pleasure is, all authoritie, power, priviledge, and profitt
whatsoever belonginge and properlie apperteyninge to the Maister
of the Revelles in respect of his office shall remayne and abide
entire and in full force, effect, and vertue, and in as ample
sort as if this our Commission had never byn made. In witnes
whereof &c., witnes our selfe at Westminster the seaventeenth day
of Iuly.
per breve de priuato sigillo &c.

The company is not traceable in London, but Daniel brought it to Norwich in 1616–17. By April 1618 he had assigned his privilege to Martin Slater, John Edmonds and Nathaniel Clay, who obtained, presumably from the Privy Council, supplementary letters of assistance in which they are described as ‘her Maiesties servants’, and are authorized to play as ‘her Maiesties servants of her Royall Chamber of Bristoll’.[206] From a complaint sent in the following June by the Mayor of Exeter to Sir Thomas Lake, it emerges that, although the patent was for children, the company consisted of five youths and several grown men.[207] Slater and Edmonds still held their _status_ as Queen’s men (q.v.) in 1619.

vi. WESTMINSTER SCHOOL

_Head Masters_:--John Adams (1540); Alexander Nowell
(1543–53); Nicholas Udall (1555–6); John Passey (1557–8, with
Richard Spencer as usher); John Randall (1563); Thomas Browne
(1564–9); Francis Howlyn (1570–1); Edward Graunte (1572–92);
William Camden (1593–8, Undermaster 1575–93); Richard Ireland
(1599–1610); John Wilson (1610–22).

_Choir Masters_ (?):--William Cornish (1480); John Taylor
(1561–7); John Billingsley (1572); William Elderton (1574).

[_Bibliographical Note._--The best sources of information are: R. Widmore, _History of Westminster Abbey_ (1751); J. Welch [--C. B. Phillimore], _Alumni Westmonasterienses_, ed. 2 (1852); _Appendix to First Report of the Cathedral Commissioners_ (1854); F. H. Forshall, _Westminster School, Past and Present_ (1884); J. Sargeaunt, _Annals of Westminster School_ (1898); A. F. Leach, _The Origin of Westminster School in Journal of Education_, n. s. xxvii (1905), 79. Some valuable records have been printed by E. J. L. Scott in the _Athenaeum_, and extracts from others are given in the _Observer_ for 7 Dec. 1919. A. F. Leach has fixed the dates of Udall’s life in _Encycl. Brit._ s.v.]

There is no trace of any grammar school in the abbey of Westminster until the fourteenth century. The _Customary_ of 1259–83 (ed. E. M. Thompson for _Henry Bradshaw Soc._) only contemplates education for the novices, and in the earliest almoner’s accounts, which begin with 1282, entries of 1317 ‘in maintaining Nigel at school for the love of God’ (Leach, 80) and 1339–40, ‘pro scholaribus inueniendis ad scolas’ (E. H. Pearce, _The Monks of Westminster Abbey_, 79), need only refer to the support of scholars at a University. But from 1354–5 there were almonry boys (_pueri Elemosinariae_) under the charge of the Sub-Almoner, and these are traceable up to the dissolution. To them we may assign the _ludus_ of the Boy Bishop on St. Nicholas’ day, mentions of which have been noted in 1369, 1388, 1413, and 1540 (_Mediaeval Stage_, i. 360; Leach, 80). They had a school house near ‘le Millebank’, and from 1367 the Almoner paid a _Magister Puerorum_. From 1387 he is often called _Magister Scolarum_ and in the fifteenth century _Magister Scolarium_. From 1510 the boys under the _Magister_ become _pueri grammatici_, and may be distinct from certain _pueri cantantes_ for whom since 1479–80 the Almoner had paid a separate teacher of singing. The first of these song-masters was William Cornish, doubtless of the family so closely connected with the Chapel Royal (q.v.). In 1540 the _pueri grammatici_ were reorganized as the still existing College of St. Peter, Westminster, which is therefore generally regarded as owing its origin to Henry VIII, who on the surrender of the abbey in 1540 turned it into a college of secular canons, and provided for a school of forty scholars. This endured in some form through the reactionary reign of Mary, whose favourite dramatist Nicholas Udall became its Head Master, although the date of his appointment on 16 December 1555 (A. F. Leach in _Encycl. Brit._, s.v. Udall) makes it probable that, if he wrote his _Ralph Roister Doister_ for a school at all, it was for Eton (q.v.) rather than Westminster. His predecessor Alexander Nowell is said by Strype to have ‘brought in the reading of Terence for the better learning the pure Roman style’, and, as the Sub-Almoner paid ‘xvi_d._ for wryting of a play for the chyldren’ as early as 1521 (_Observer_), the performance of Latin comedies by the boys may have been pre-Elizabethan. It is provided for in the statutes drafted by Dean Bill (_c._ 1560) after the restoration of her father’s foundation by Elizabeth. These statutes also contemplate a good deal of interrelation between the choir school and the grammar school. They are printed in the _Report of the Cathedral Commission_ (App. I, 80). The personnel of the foundation was to include (a) ‘_clerici duodecim_’, of whom ‘_unus sit choristarum doctor_’, (b) ‘_decem pueri symphoniaci sive choristae_’, presumably in continuation of the former singing boys, (c) ‘_praeceptores duo ad erudiendam iuventutem_’, (d) ‘_discipuli grammatici quadraginta_’. The ‘_praeceptores_’ are distinguished later in the document as ‘_archididascalus_’ and ‘_hypodidascalus_’, and the former is also called ‘_ludimagister_’. By c. 5 the choristers are to have a preference in elections to the grammar school. The following section ‘_De Choristis et Choristarum Magistro_’ forms part of c. 9:

‘Statuimus et ordinamus ut in ecclesia nostra praedicta sint
decem choristae, pueri tenerae aetatis et vocibus sonoris ad
cantandum, et ad artem musicam discendam, et etiam ad musica
instrumenta pulsanda apti, qui choro inserviant, ministrent,
et cantent. Ad hos praeclare instituendos, unus eligatur qui
sit honestae famae, vitae probae, religionis sincerae, artis
musicae peritus, et ad cantandum et musica instrumenta pulsanda
exercitatus, qui pueris in praedictis scientiis et exercitiis
docendis aliisque muniis [? muneribus] in choro obeundis
studiose vacabit. Hunc magistrum choristarum appellari volumus.
Cui muneri doctores et baccalaureos musices aliis praeferendos
censemus. Volumus etiam quoties eum ab ecclesia nostra
abesse contingat, alterum substituat a decano vel eo absente
prodecano approbandum. Prospiciat item puerorum saluti, quorum
et in literis (donec ut in scholam nostram admittantur apti
censebuntur) et in morum modestia et in convictu educationem
et liberalem institutionem illius fidei et industriae
committimus. Quod si negligens et in docendo desidiosus, aut in
salute puerorum et recta eorum educatione minime providus et
circumspectus, et ideo non tolerandus inveniatur, post trinam
admonitionem (si se non emendaverit) ab officio deponatur. Qui
quidem choristarum magister ad officium suum per se fideliter
obeundum iuramento etiam adigetur. Choristae postquam octo
orationis partes memoriter didicerint et scribere mediocriter
noverint, ad scholam nostram ut melius in grammatica proficiant
singulis diebus profestis accedant, ibique duabus minimum horis
maneant, et a praeceptoribus instituantur.’

The following section ‘_De Comoediis et Ludis in Natali Domini exhibendis_’ comes in c. 10:

‘Quo iuventus maiore cum fructu tempus Natalis Christi terat,
et tum actioni tum pronunciationi decenti melius se assuescat:
statuimus ut singulis annis intra 12^m post festum Natalis
Christi dies [? diem], vel postea arbitrio decani, ludimagister
et praeceptor simul Latine unam, magister choristarum Anglice
alteram comoediam aut tragoediam a discipulis et choristis suis
in aula privatim vel publice agendam, curent. Quod si non
prestiterint singuli quorum negligentia omittuntur decem solidis
mulctentur.’

The statutes appear never to have been confirmed by the Crown, and their practical adoption was subject to certain exceptions. Thus, it is stated in the report of the Public Schools Commission in 1864 (i. 159) that there is no reason to believe that the provision giving a preference to choristers in elections for the grammar school was ever attended to.

Of plays and the like, however, there are various records. The first since 1521 is at the Lord Mayor’s Day of 1561, when the Merchant Taylors’ expenses for their pageant included items ‘to John Tayllour, master of the Children of the late monastere of Westminster, for his children that sung and played in the pageant’, and ‘to John Holt momer in reward for attendance given of the children in the pageant’. Similar payments were made to Taylor as ‘M^r of the quirysters’ for the services of the children on the Ironmongers’ pageant of 1566.[208] In 1562 the choristers of Westminster Abbey performed a goodly play before the Society of Parish Clerks after their annual dinner.[209] In 1564–5 comes the first of a series of Court performances, which received assistance from the Revels office. To this occasion belongs a memorandum of ‘Thexpenses of twoo playes viz. Heautontimoroumenos Terentii and Miles Gloriosus Plauti plaied by the children of the grammer schoole in the colledge of Westminster and before the Quenes maiestie anno 1564’.[210] The items include, ‘At ye rehersing before Sir Thomas Benger for pinnes and suger candee vj_d._’, ‘For a lynke to bring thapparell from the reuells iiij_d._’, ‘At the playing of Miles Glor: in M^r. Deanes howse for pinnes half a thousand vj_d._’, ‘Geuen to M^r. Holte yeoman of the reuells x_s._’, ‘To M^r. Taylor his man’, ‘For one Plautus geven to ye Queenes maiestie and fowre other vnto the nobilitie xj_s._’ It is not quite clear whether the _Heautontimorumenus_, as well as the _Miles Gloriosus_, was given before the Queen, but I think not. In 1565–6 Elizabeth was again present at the play of _Sapientia Solomonis_, and there were payments ‘For drawing the city and temple of Jerusalem and paynting towers’, ‘To a woman that brawght her childe to the stadge and there attended uppon it’, and for a copy of the play bound ‘in vellum with the Queenes Ma^{tie} hir armes and sylke ribben strings’, almost certainly that still extant as _Addl. MS._ 20061 (cf. App. K), which shows that Elizabeth was accompanied by Cecilia of Sweden.[211] Whether these plays were at the school or at Court is not quite clear. I should, on the whole, infer the latter, but no rewards were paid for them by the Treasurer of the Chamber. John Taylor was, however, paid for plays by the Children of Westminster during the Shrovetide of 1566–7 and the Christmas of 1567–8; John Billingesley for their _Paris and Vienna_ on 19 February 1572; and William Elderton for their _Truth, Faithfulness, and Mercy_ on 1 January 1574. In 1567 also the boys are recorded (_Observer_) to have played at Putney before Bishop Grindal. I suppose that Billingesley and Elderton succeeded Taylor as _Magistri Choristarum_. Taylor himself is probably the same who on 8 September 1557 was Master of the singing children at the hospital of St. Mary Woolnoth. Elderton is presumably the same who brought the Eton boys to Court in 1573. Whether he is also the bibulous balladist of the pamphleteers (cf. ch. xv) is more doubtful. The absence of a payment for _Miles Gloriosus_ may suggest that this was given by the grammar school who, like the Inns of Court, did not expect a reward, and that the English plays were given by the choristers, who were on the same footing as the choristers of Paul’s. I am not sure, however, that the wording of the statutes quite implies such a sharp distinction between the two sets of boys, and it will be noticed that Taylor, or his man, was in some way concerned with the Latin play. Very possibly grammar boys and choristers acted together. With 1574 the Court performances end, but expenses of plays are traceable in the college accounts in 1604–5, 1605–6, 1606–7, and 1609–10, and up to about 1640, when they stop for sixty-four years.[212]

vii. ETON COLLEGE

_Head Masters_:--William Malim (c. 1555–73); William Smyth (c.
1563); Reuben Sherwood (c. 1571); Thomas Ridley (1579); John
Hammond (1583); Richard Langley (1594); Richard Wright (1611);
Matthew Bust (1611–30).

[_Bibliographical Note._--The best sources of information are J.
Heywood and T. Wright, _Ancient Laws of King’s College and Eton
College_ (1850); _Report of Public Schools Commission_ (1864);
W. L. Collins, _Etoniana_ 1865); H. Maxwell-Lyte, _History of
Eton_ (1875, 4th ed. 1911); W. Sterry, _Annals of Eton College_
(1898).]

The King’s College of Our Lady of Eton beside Windsor was founded by Henry VI in 1441. The Statutes of 1444 provide for a Boy Bishop (_Mediaeval Stage_, i. 365), but the custom was discontinued before 1559–61, when William Malim prepared a _Consuetudinarium_ for a Royal Commission appointed to visit the college. By this time, however, Christmas plays by the boys had become the practice, and Malim writes:[213]

‘Circiter festum D. Andreae [Nov. 30] ludimagister eligere
solet pro suo arbitrio scaenicas fabulas optimas et quam
accommodatissimas, quas pueri feriis natalitiis subsequentibus
non sine ludorum elegantia, populo spectante, publice aliquando
peragant. Histrionum levis ars est, ad actionem tamen oratorum,
et gestum motumque corporis decentem tantopere facit, ut nihil
magis. Interdum etiam exhibet Anglico sermone contextas fabulas,
quae habeant acumen et leporem.’

There are ‘numerous’ entries of expenditure on these plays in the Audit Books from 1525–6 to 1572–3, of which a few only have been printed.[214] There is also an inventory, apparently undated, of articles in ‘M^r. Scholemasters chamber’, which includes ‘a great cheste bound about with yron to keepe the players coats in’, and a list of the apparel, beards, and properties. The Eton boys played under Udall before Cromwell in 1538 (_Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 196, 451), and it is possible that _Ralph Roister Doister_ may belong to his Eton mastership.[215] The only Court performance by Eton boys on record was one on 6 January 1573, for which the payee was Elderton, presumably the William Elderton who was payee for the Westminster boys in the following year.

viii. MERCHANT TAYLORS SCHOOL

_Head Masters_:--Richard Mulcaster (1561–86); Henry Wilkinson
(1586–92); Edmund Smith (1592–9); William Hayne (1599–1625).

The London school of the Merchant Taylors was founded in 1561, and its first master was Richard Mulcaster, or Moncaster, as his name is spelt in some of the earlier records.[216] He was a student of King’s, Cambridge and Christ Church, Oxford, who had been teaching in London since 1559. The first performances by his boys, of which record remains, were in 1572–3. In that and the following year they played before the Merchant Taylors Company at the Common Hall.[217] Unfortunately the audience, who had paid for their seats, and very likely Mulcaster himself, paid more attention to the plays than to the dignitaries in whose hall they were given. The plays were therefore stopped, and the following pleasing example of civic pomposity inserted in the archives of the Company on 16 March 1574:[218]

‘Whereas at our comon playes and suche lyke exercises whiche
be comonly exposed to be seene for money, everye lewd persone
thinketh himself (for his penny) worthye of the chiefe and most
comodious place withoute respecte of any other either for age
or estimacion in the comon weale, whiche bringeth the youthe to
such an impudente famyliaritie with theire betters that often
tymes greite contempte of maisters, parents, and magistrats
foloweth thereof, as experience of late in this our comon hall
hath sufficyently declared, where by reasone of the tumultuous
disordered persones repayringe hither to see suche playes as
by our schollers were here lately played, the Maisters of this
Worshipful Companie and their deare ffrends could not have
entertaynmente and convenyente place as they ought to have had,
by no provision beinge made, notwithstandinge the spoyle of this
howse, the charges of this Mystery, and theire juste authoritie
which did reasonably require the contrary. Therefore and ffor
the causes ffirst above saide, yt is ordeyned and decreed by
the authoritie of this presente Courte, with the assente and
consente of all the worshipfull persones aforesaide, that
henceforthe theire shall be no more plays suffered to be played
in this our Comon Hall, any use or custome heretofore to the
contrary in anywise notwithstandinge.’

Mulcaster, however, found more tolerant critics than his own employers. His first appearance at Court was on 3 February 1573.[219] On 2 February 1574 he presented _Timoclia at the Siege of Thebes_ and on 23 February _Percius and Anthomiris_; at Shrovetide 1575 and on 6 March 1576 plays unnamed; and on 12 February 1583 _Ariodante and Geneuora_. A reminiscence of these performances has been left us by the seventeenth-century judge, Sir James Whitelocke, who entered the school in 1575 and left for St. John’s, Oxford, in 1588:

‘I was brought up at school under M^r Mulcaster, in the famous
school of the Merchantaylors in London.... Yeerly he presented
sum playes to the court, in which his scholers wear only actors,
and I on among them, and by that meanes taughte them good
behaviour and audacitye.’[220]