During the reign of Edward II the power of the Wardrobe was broken up, partly by the direct action of baronial hostility, partly by a discreet process of reorganization within the household, in the face of baronial criticism. The responsibilities of the Treasurer and Comptroller were limited to the purely domestic expenditure of the Steward's department, much as we find them in Tudor times. The charge of the privy seal was dissociated from the Comptrollership; its use, like that of the great seal before it, was subjected to regulation in the baronial interest; and it soon became superfluous. Offices, such as the Great Wardrobe for the purveyance of cloth, furs, and other bulky commodities, which had recently come into existence as branches of the Wardrobe, were now placed on an independent footing, and began to account direct to the Exchequer. And now once more, after remaining in obscurity for the best part of a century, emerges into renewed activity the financial organization of the Chamber. To it appears to have been assigned, as part of the scheme of reform, such expenditure as could not with propriety be withdrawn from the personal supervision of the sovereign.[175] With this as a nucleus, it was not particularly difficult to convert the Chamber into just such a financial and administrative organ as the Wardrobe had been before it. The funds at its disposal were gradually increased, as opportunities offered themselves of adding to them the revenues of one escheated manor after another. Its clerks in turn became the secretarii, out of whom the royal Secretaries in the Tudor sense were in course of time developed. Even the lost privy seal proved capable of replacement by a series of other small seals, the 'secret' seal under Edward II, the 'griffin' seal under Edward III, and finally the 'signet', which remained to the end in the hands of the Secretaries. It was only up to a point that the trained bureaucrats, with the power of knowledge behind them, proved amenable to baronial control. It is probably only up to a point that they will prove amenable to democratic control.

The actual use made of the Chamber varied considerably in different reigns. It flourished at the end of the reign of Edward II, and again during the first half of that of Edward III. Soon after the middle of the fourteenth century, it lost much of its political status, owing to the separation from it of the Secretaries, who now had their own clerks in the Signet Office, and on the financial side it was for long little more than a privy purse in strict subordination to the Exchequer. It was still, however, capable at need of serving as a medium of war expenditure, and with the appointment of Thomas Vaughan by Edward IV in 1465 its financial importance began to revive.[176] Up to the end of the fourteenth century, its financial officers are generally called Receivers of the Chamber; during the next the double title of Treasurer of the Chamber and Keeper of the King's Jewels establishes itself.[177] They are sometimes, although perhaps not always, appointed by patent, and at any rate from the time of Henry IV are only accountable to the King in person.[178] On the execution of Vaughan in 1583 the posts of Treasurer of the Chamber and Keeper of the Jewels were divided; and it may serve as an illustration of the conservatism of courts that this was still a subject of grievance in the Jewel House two hundred years later.[179]

At the beginning of Henry VII's reign the functions of Treasurer of the Chamber were discharged by Thomas, afterwards Sir Thomas, Lovell.[180] On his appointment as Treasurer of the Household in August 1592, he was succeeded by John, afterwards Sir John, Heron, who had in fact acted as his assistant and kept his books from 1487.[181] Under the Tudors, with their general tendency to elaborate the personal control of government by the sovereign, the post remained one of first-class importance. It was regulated in 1511 by a statute, the recital of which sets out that it had been the practice for certain Receivers of royal lands to account before persons appointed by Henry VII 'for the more speedy payment of his revenues and the accounts of the same to be more speedily taken than could have been after the course of the Exchequer', and after accounting to pay sums to the use of the King in his chamber.[182] The record of these transactions, signed by the King or 'his trusty servant John Heron' had been no legal discharge to the accountants in the Exchequer. Henry VIII had set up by patent a body of General Surveyors and Approvers of the King's Lands to take the accounts, and the statute confirms this proceeding and appoints John Heron to be Treasurer of the Chamber, and to be answerable, with his successors, direct to the King, and not to the Exchequer.[183] John Heron continued in office until 1521.[184] His successor was John Miklowe, who had been Comptroller of the Household.[185] But Miklowe's tenure of office must have been short, for in 1523 a statute, passed in renewal of that of 1511, names as Treasurer Sir Henry Wyatt, who was the father of the poet, Sir Thomas Wyatt.[186] In 1526 Wyatt was placed on the Privy Council[187]; and on 13 April 1528 he was succeeded as Treasurer by Sir Brian Tuke, who held office until 1545.[188] In 1541 a new statute was passed which erected the Surveyors of the King's Lands into a court of record, appointed the Treasurer of the Chamber as Treasurer of the Court, and required him to account before the Court or such other persons as the King might appoint, both in this capacity and also for 'all and every the receytes issues profyttes dettes and thinges concernyng his office of Treasurership of the Kinges Chamber'.[189] Tuke was succeeded on 25 November 1545 by Sir Anthony Rous, to whom one John Dawes acted as deputy[190]; and Rous on 19 February 1546, by Sir William Cavendish, to the disappointment of Stephen Vaughan, Henry's financial agent at Antwerp, who had hoped for the post. Cavendish also had the assistance of a deputy, Robert Oliver.[191] During Cavendish's tenure of office, two further changes in the position of the Treasurership took place. A patent of 1547, subsequently confirmed by statute under Edward VI in 1553, dissolved alike the Court of Surveyors and the analogous Court of Augmentations, created to deal with the revenues of surrendered religious houses in 1535, and established in place of these a combined Court of Augmentation and Revenues of the King's Crown, of which the Treasurer of the Chamber was to continue to act as Treasurer.[192] Hardly, however, had this readjustment received legislative sanction, when it was upset again. A patent of 1554, under the authority of an Act of Mary's first Parliament, suppressed the Court of Augmentation, by annexing its business to the Exchequer, and directed the revenues to be paid into the Exchequer and accounts to be audited there, as before the Court was set up.[193] Cavendish did not find the Treasurership a bed of roses. On Tuke's death it was anticipated that his successor would receive a legacy of official debts.[194] A book containing copies of 'certificates' or reports made by Cavendish to the Privy Council show that he soon had occasion to be perturbed.[195] About Lady Day 1546 he represented that his receipts had been dislocated to the extent of about £14,000, and that in view of his liabilities, which he detailed, there was urgent need to consider the state of the office. In another paper he called attention to the enormous number of securities for old debts to the Crown, some of them dating from the time of Henry VII, with which he found from Tuke's books that he was charged; and, as 'a yonge officer not long exercised in the same', prayed that these might be reviewed, and a decision arrived at as to how much of the total nominal amount of £322,980 covered by them stood for 'sperat' and how much for 'desperat' debts. The book also contains summaries of his liabilities during 1547, at the end of 1548, when he declared that he had debts of £14,000 and no ready money in the office, and finally at Lady Day 1554. This last item does not disclose how far his revenue had in the interval been made sufficient for his needs. It is possible that it had been made more than sufficient, for on 17 August 1556 the Privy Council called upon him to appear before them with 'Cade his clerc', and on 9 October 1557 they returned his book of account, stating that he owed £5,237 5s. 0-3/4d. and must appear and answer particularities, either in person or, if ill, by his clerks.[196] It seems clear that the Tudor period had seen a very considerable increase in the scope of the financial transactions with which the Treasurer of the Chamber had to deal. In addition to privy purse expenditure in the narrower sense, such as the royal pocket-money, alms and oblations, largesse and rewards, and the like, he became responsible for many wages and annuities, some of which, including those of the royal players, had formerly been charged direct upon the Exchequer.[197] He purchased the jewels and costly stuffs in which much of the Tudor wealth was invested. He financed or helped to finance the Surveyor of Works, the Great Wardrobe, and even for a time the Cofferer of the Household. And beyond the limits of anything which could be called domestic expenditure, he undertook much that was concerned with 'the King's outward causes', the maintenance of posts and ambassadors, royal loans, secret service; even, it would appear, although perhaps out of a special account, the service of war. His income, originally derived from the Exchequer, was put on to an independent basis, by the direct assignment to him of numerous revenues, both ordinary and extraordinary, including most of the new sources of wealth on which the financial policy of Henry VII had firmly based the power of the Crown. Some of his payments were made in accordance with old established custom or under household ordinances or other standing instructions.[198] But the great majority depended upon the personal authority of the sovereign, communicated either by word of mouth or by warrant under the sign manual or the signet, or in course of time through the medium of a minister such as Wolsey or the Privy Council. Similarly he rendered his accounts at first to the King in person, and the early books bear the signatures of Henry VII and Henry VIII in token of audit on many pages.[199] The responsibility grew to be a very heavy one, with a turnover of some £100,000 in the course of a year, and we find Brian Tuke in 1534 writing of it as 'a charge that far surmounteth any in England', and pressing 'that for things ordinary I may have for payments an ordinary warrant, and that for things extraordinary I may always have special warrant or else some such way as I, dealing truly, may be truly discharged', lest if there were any misunderstanding, 'I might be undone in a day, lacking any warrant when I sue for it'. It would appear to have been the special difficulty of the Treasurer's position which led to the system of audit by means of a 'Declared Account', as a substitute at once for the cumbrous method of the earlier Exchequer, and the more recent practice of personal verification by the sovereign. When Sir Henry Wyatt left office he was directed to declare his account before a General Surveyor of the King's Lands, and this method was adopted when the Surveyors became a statutory court in 1541 and ultimately passed after the dissolution of the special courts into ordinary Exchequer practice.[200]

Sir William Cavendish, who was ill when the Privy Council asked for details of his account on 9 October, died on 25 October 1557. An account for 1 April to 31 December 1557 is in the name of Edmund Felton, perhaps only an interim administrator.[201] The Treasurership of the Chamber, together with the Mastership of the Posts, was granted by patent on 29 October 1558 to Sir John Mason, with a fee of £240 and 1s. a day.[202] Mason was continued in office by Elizabeth, and on 23 December 1558 the Lord Chamberlain, the Comptroller of the Household, the Secretary, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer were appointed as a committee of the Privy Council 'to survey the office of the Treasurer of the Chamber and to assigne order of paymente'.[203] As a result, considerable changes seem to have been made, which reversed the policy of the last half-century and much reduced the Treasurer's responsibilities. On the one hand, the funds assigned to the Cofferer of the Household, the Surveyor of Works, the Master of Posts, and the Ambassadors no longer passed through his account; on the other, a separate account was established for the more personal expenditure of the Queen, which was put into the charge of a Groom of the Privy Chamber, acting as keeper of the Privy Purse. Both accounts seem to have become subject to audit and declaration at the Exchequer; but while that of the Treasurer of the Chamber was declared annually, the only extant Privy Purse account of the reign is one for the ten years 1559-69 declared after the death of the first keeper, John Tamworth.[204] This was a small account, mainly fed by New Year and other gifts to the Queen. The expenditure out of it only averaged about £2,500 a year. Most of it was upon gifts and rewards, which were detailed in a book of particulars under the sign manual, unfortunately not preserved. A payment of £5,000 to the Earl of Moray suggests that it proved a convenient channel for secret service funds. It also includes items for the keep of the royal fool, for the purchase of jewels, and for certain annuities, wages, riding charges, and expenses of the stable and hunt. The Treasurer of the Chamber, under the new arrangement, spent about £12,000 a year.[205] Out of this he defrayed the royal alms, certain rewards, wages, annuities, and riding charges, the maintenance of prisoners, and the expenses of 'apparelling' the Queen's houses and keeping her gardens. Obviously the two accounts come very near overlapping at several points. One may suppose that in the main the Treasurer of the Chamber was responsible for customary payments and such as could be made on the authority of officers of state or household; the Keeper of the Privy Purse with those which depended on the personal pleasure of the sovereign. The officers borne on the Treasurer of the Chamber's wage list were those who belonged neither to the household proper nor to the 'standing' offices; the Yeomen of the Guard, the Watermen, the Apothecaries, the Musicians and Players, the Hunt, the Footmen and Boys of the Stable, the Artificers, the Rat and Mole Takers, the Keepers of Paris Garden, the Surveyor of Gates and Bridges, the Chester Post. That they should also have included the officers of the Jewel House is explicable from the original connexion between these and the Treasurer. The Treasurer's own salary and his office expenses also appear in his account.

The distinction now drawn between the Treasury of the Chamber and the Privy Purse must have had the effect of putting the Treasurer in a position analogous to that of the Secretaries. He was on the way to becoming an officer of state rather than an officer of the household.

The order of payment determined upon by the Privy Council appears to have been that salaries chargeable to the Treasurer of the Chamber should be payable upon 'warrants dormant', 'riding charges' for messengers upon warrants from the Secretary, and miscellaneous payments, such as rewards for plays at court, upon warrants from the Privy Council itself.[206] Sir Francis Knollys became Treasurer of the Chamber when Mason died upon 21 April 1566[207]; and Thomas, afterwards Sir Thomas, Heneage, when Knollys was appointed Treasurer of the Household, on 15 February 1570.[208] Knollys, throughout his period of office, and Heneage, from 1589, combined the Treasurership with the duties of Vice-Chamberlain of the Household. Heneage died in October 1595, and there was some delay before a successor was appointed.[209] A trial of strength seems to have taken place between Essex and Burghley, who regarded the filling of the vacancy, together with the much more important vacancy in the Secretaryship, as critical to his chances of prolonging his dynasty. Burghley's candidate was John Stanhope; Essex's Sir Henry Unton, to whom he wrote about his prospects on 24 October 1595, telling him that Robert Cecil was troubled at the competition, and thought that neither would carry it.[210] I am not sure that Cecil had been quite straightforward with Essex. Another aspirant was Sir Edward Wotton.[211] There is gossip about the matter in Rowland Whyte's letters to Sir Robert Sidney.[212] On 29 October he wrote, 'Probi is comanded to wayt at court; hath spoken with her Majestie, and is sayd he shall haue the Disbursing of the Treasory of the Chamber, till her Majestie be pleased to bestow yt. Sir H. Umpton and Mr. John Stanhope, stands for yt.' On 5 November, 'Peter Proby paies the money till a Treasorer of the Chamber be chosen, which will not be in hast'. Peter Proby was a useful hanger-on of Burghley's, and had been his barber. On 20 November 'Sir Thomas Heneges Funerals were solemnised, his Offices all vnbestowed'. By 7 December Whyte ventures a prophecy:

Whyte was wrong, however. William Killigrew was a mere stop-gap.[213] On 20 December, Whyte has an inkling of what is going on, and commits his new information to cipher.

It was not until 5 July that, according to an amused letter from Anthony Bacon, 'Elephas peperit' with the swearing in of Sir Robert Cecil as Secretary and John Stanhope as Treasurer of the Chamber, 'so that now the old man may say with the rich man in the gospel requiescat anima mea'.

Burghley himself notes the appointment without comment in his diary.[214] John Stanhope, who was knighted on his appointment and created Lord Stanhope of Harrington on 4 May 1605, did not get the Vice-Chamberlainship until 1601. He remained Treasurer until his death in 1617. There was some characteristic Stuart traffic in the reversion. Sir Thomas Overbury held it at his death in 1613. Lord Rochester then bought it from Stanhope for £2,000, and offered it to Sir Henry Neville, who declined to take it from a subject. Finally it passed to Sir William Uvedale, who in fact became Treasurer in succession to Stanhope.[215]

During Stanhope's tenure of office, some changes in the 'order of payment' took place. The account for 1607-8 recites a privy seal of 27 January 1608 as authority for the transfer from the Privy Purse to the Treasurer of the Chamber of certain payments made on warrants from the Lord Chamberlain. Similar payments thereafter form a regular section of the account from year to year. By a later privy seal of 11 October 1614, still extant, an additional sum of £1,500 a year is put at the disposal of the Treasurer to enable him to meet them.[216] His total assignment was thus increased to about £20,000 or rather more than half as much again as the office had cost under Elizabeth. That of the Privy Purse was now about £6,000.[217] We have seen that there had been possibilities of overlapping between the two accounts, but it is rather odd that amongst the items transferred should be specified allowances for plays, bear-baitings and other sports, since such allowances had regularly been paid by the Treasurer of the Chamber for something more than a century past. It is, however, the case that from 1614-15 onwards, the payments were made on warrants from the Lord Chamberlain instead of the Privy Council.

It is rather surprising that the Privy Council, whose members were carrying out duties roughly analogous to those of a modern Cabinet, should at any time have concerned itself with such trifling matters of domestic routine as the signature of certificates authorizing the payment of rewards at recognized rates to companies of actors and other entertainers. The explanation, however, is that the Privy Council, like the Household and the Departments of State themselves, was a direct representative of the Norman curia regis, and that the curia regis had been the organization through which the King's subjects and servants gave him assistance in all his affairs, small and great, domestic as well as political.[218] For all practical purposes, indeed, the Elizabethan Privy Council consisted of little more than the chief officers of the State departments and Household, sitting together, and acting collectively. The great territorial magnates, who at certain periods of its history had turned it into an instrument for the control rather than the exercise of the royal prerogative, were now, unless they happened to hold official positions, rarely sworn amongst its members; but upon it, side by side with the Chancellor and the Treasurer, the Admiral and the Privy Seal, sat not only the Secretaries, but also the Steward and the Chamberlain, the Master of the Horse, the Treasurer and Comptroller of the Household, and often the Vice-Chamberlain or the Treasurer of the Chamber. It was therefore natural enough, to Tudor no less than to mediaeval ways of thinking, that among its numerous and imperfectly defined activities should be included some which give it the aspect of a Household board of control. It was in fact by means of a Household ordinance that Henry VIII regulated the composition of the Privy Council and directed the constant attendance of the members upon his own person[219]; and throughout Elizabeth's reign we find the Council in the closest possible association with the Court, following it from palace to palace, and even from stage to stage of the progress, so that the record of its meetings serves practically as a royal itinerary, and sitting under the most direct Household influences in some convenient apartment of the Privy Chamber. There was even no longer, as in the time of Henry VIII, a 'council at London' as well as a 'council with the King', with the exceptions that, if the Court was very far from head-quarters, a few of the lords sometimes stayed behind to look after current affairs, and that the council as a whole seems occasionally to have met at Westminster when the Court was not there, either in connexion with the sittings of the Star Chamber, or for special business in the lodgings of one or other of its members.[220] This tradition of propinquity between the Sovereign and his council was, however, broken through by James, who at an early date in his reign took to leaving the lords to transact business at court, while he went hither and thither on his endless hunting journeys.

In the absence of any contemporary ordinale for the Privy Council, some idea of its methods can be gathered from the register of transactions kept by its clerks and from other sources.[221] It is probable that the Queen sometimes sat with the lords, although her attendance is never recorded in the register.[222] The usual president was the Lord Chancellor; the earlier Tudor post of President of the Council was rarely, if ever, filled up by Elizabeth.[223] But the general supervision of the clerks and the preparation of business for consideration, other than that which lay directly within the department of some particular officer, seems to have fallen to the Secretary. The number of councillors was gradually reduced from twenty-four at the beginning to thirteen at the end of the reign. Of these not more than half were generally present at any one sitting. But there appears to have been no fixed quorum; occasionally only two members or even one transacted business. At first three meetings a week sufficed; later they were often held daily, both by morning and afternoon, and even on Sundays. Wednesday and Friday were generally set aside for petitions and other private business, and the remaining days devoted to public affairs. Drafts of proclamations were passed by the Council before they received the royal sign manual, and thus became of the nature of Orders in Council.[224] Where a proclamation was not in question, the conclusions arrived at by the Council were embodied in a minute, and submitted through the Secretary for royal approval. When this had been obtained, any executive action was then taken in the form of warrants or letters to administrative officers, central or local, or to individuals, according to the nature of the business. These required the signature of not less than six councillors, who were not necessarily those present when the business was discussed. Before they were put forward for signature they were subscribed by the Secretary or one of the clerks. Warrants to the Treasurer of the Chamber or other paymasters were also impressed by the clerk with the special seal of the council. The minutes were ultimately placed in the council chest, which is unfortunately lost. But copies or abstracts of those which related to public affairs, or in some cases copies of the letters finally issued, were made by the clerks and from time to time bound up in volumes, of which a series, far from continuous, is preserved.[225] Even at their fullest, however, these 'Acts of the Council' cannot be supposed to form a complete record of its proceedings. Council letters are to be found in many local archives of which no note exists in the register. There were four or five Clerks of the Council who took duty, two at a time, according to a monthly rota, and it is clear that some of them were more business-like than others. But it is also probable that much business of a confidential character was deliberately left without record. In addition to the clerks, there was a Keeper of the Council Chamber door, probably one of the Ushers of the Chamber, and the Messengers of the Chamber were available to carry such letters as could not conveniently be entrusted to the regular staff of the Master of Posts.[226]

The ordinary sittings of the Privy Council were of course held in private, and each member took a special oath of secrecy upon appointment. But on each Wednesday and Friday during term time they resolved themselves into the Court of Star Chamber, and held a public sitting to inquire into cases of riot, libel, disregard of proclamations, and the like. Herein they were exercising the old power of the curia regis to duplicate the functions of the law courts.[227] For Star Chamber purposes they associated with themselves judges, who ranked as 'ordinary' but not 'privy' councillors.[228] 'Ordinary' councillors also were the Queen's 'counsel learned in the law', who included the Attorney- and Solicitor-Generals and the Queen's Serjeants, and the Masters of Requests who, by another exercise of curial jurisdiction, sat in the old 'white hall' at Westminster to deal, under the general direction of the Privy Council, with civil cases arising out of the suits of poor men or of royal servants.[229] The political functions of the Privy Council lie beyond the scope of this study, but their concern with all matters affecting breach of the peace, sedition, heresy, and public health entailed, under more than one of these heads, a general supervision of the stage, which will be the subject for discussion in a later chapter.[230] Similarly, the players, or those of them who were royal servants, came as such under the jurisdiction of the Court of Requests, and some interesting information as to their contracts and disputes is derived from the records of that tribunal.[231]

III
THE REVELS OFFICE

ONE of the 'standing' offices which, from the general oversight exercised over them by the Lord Chamberlain, may also be regarded as 'offices outward of the Chamber' was the Revels Office. This, in its fullest establishment, consisted of a Master, a Clerk Comptroller, and a Clerk, whose services it shared with the analogous Office of Tents, a Yeoman, and a Groom. It was of Tudor origin. The first mention of a Master of Revels is in a Household order of 31 December 1494.[232] But the post appears to have been at this period a purely temporary one, conferred upon some existing officer of the Household, who had been selected to supervise and defray the expenses of the revels for a particular feast. Several of these ad hoc Masters are recorded at the court of Henry VIII; the most prominent was Sir Henry Guildford, who held various offices, including that of Comptroller of the Household. The Masters appear to be distinct from the Lords of Misrule, who were also appointed pro hac vice during the Christmas season, but whose duties were ceremonial and quasi-dramatic, rather than administrative.[233] In dealing with the details of Revels organization, the transitory and fluctuating Masters had, from the beginning of the reign, the assistance of a permanent official, who belonged originally to the establishment of the Wardrobe. It was his business to carry into effect the general directions of the Master; to obtain stuffs from mercers or from the Wardrobe itself, and ornaments from the Jewel House and the Mint; to engage architects, carpenters, painters, tailors and embroiderers; to superintend the actual performances in the banqueting-hall or the tilt-yard, and attempt to preserve the costly and elaborate pageants from the rifling of the guests; to have the custody of dresses, visors, and properties; and finally, to render accounts and obtain payment for expenses from the Exchequer. These duties, with others of like character, were long performed by one Richard Gibson, whose careful accounts, compiled in an execrable orthography, preserve many curious details of forgotten pageantries, including the employment of none other than Hans Holbein in the decoration of a banqueting-hall at Greenwich. Gibson had a double qualification for his functions. In addition to his office as Porter and Yeoman Tailor of the Wardrobe, he had been, as far back as 1494, one of the King's players.[234] He had apparently the art of making himself indispensable, for he gradually accumulated both posts and pensions. He held the ancient office of Pavilionary or Serjeant of Tents, and in this capacity made the arrangements for the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. By 1526 he was one of the royal Serjeants-at-Arms.[235] Machyn, who records the burning of his son for heresy at Smithfield in 1557, describes him as 'sergantt Gybsun, sergantt of armes, and of the reywelles, and of the kynges tenstes'.[236] It is not, however, clear that he held a distinct post as Serjeant of Revels, and when a patent was issued to his successor, John Farlyon, in 1534, it was not as Serjeant, but only as Yeoman.[237] Farlyon also became in course of time Serjeant of Tents, and the traditional connexion between Tents and Revels was never wholly broken.

Whether John Travers, who became Serjeant of Tents on Farlyon's death in 1539, had any supervision over John Bridges, who became Yeoman of Revels, is rather doubtful.[238] But the position becomes quite clear in 1545, when the Serjeantship of Tents was converted into a Mastership, and its holder, Sir Thomas Cawarden, was also appointed, under a separate patent of 11 March 1545, to an entirely new post as a permanent Master of the Revels, to whom the Yeoman naturally became subordinate.[239] This continued to be John Bridges until 1550, when he was succeeded by John Holt, who had acted as his deputy since 1547.[240] Cawarden enlarged the establishment by securing the appointment of a Clerk Comptroller to check and of a Clerk to keep the books, thus leaving the Yeoman free to devote himself to the practical side of the business.[241] Both these officers served, and continued throughout our period to serve, alike for the Tents and the Revels. John Barnard was Clerk Comptroller from 1545 to 1550, when he was succeeded by Richard Lees.[242] The first Clerk was Thomas Philipps, who was appointed in 1546, and held his post until 1560.[243] But from 1551 most of the duties were performed by a deputy, Thomas Blagrave, who succeeded to the Clerkship on 25 March 1560.[244] Blagrave was a personal 'servant' of Cawarden, who probably saw to it that all the subordinate officers appointed after the retirement of Bridges were his own nominees. Each, however, held his post under a patent direct from the Crown, and this arrangement bore the promise of administrative complications when the personal relation with the Master had terminated. The following document illustrates the organization of the office as settled by Cawarden about 1546:[245]

In Farlyon's time the Revels stuff had been housed at the royal mansion of Warwick Inn in the City.[246] Cawarden moved it in 1547 to the Blackfriars, where various parts of the old Priory buildings served at different times as store-rooms and work-rooms or as residences for the officers.[247] Much material bearing upon the activities of the Revels during 1544-59 is preserved at Loseley Hall, amongst the papers of Cawarden's executor, Sir William More, who also acquired his interest in the Blackfriars. Cawarden lived just long enough to superintend the festivities at Elizabeth's coronation. After his death on 29 August 1559, his offices were distributed.[248] The Mastership of the Tents was given to Henry Sackford of the Privy Chamber. Banqueting houses, however, which had originally been the concern of the Tents, seem now to have been put in charge of the Revels. The Mastership of the Revels was given, by a patent dated 18 January 1560, to Sir Thomas Benger.[249] The Clerk Comptroller and Clerk continued as in former years to be joint officers for the Tents and the Revels. Benger is a somewhat shadowy personage. It is upon record that he gave Elizabeth a ring as a New Year's gift in 1562; that the Westminster boys rehearsed the Heautontimoroumenos and Miles Gloriosus before him in 1564 and spent 6d. on 'pinnes and sugar candee'; that he got a licence to export 300 tons of beer in 1566; that he had players of his own at Canterbury in 1569-70; and that the corporation of Saffron Walden spent 3s. 6d. upon a 'podd' of oysters for him at Elizabeth's visit to Audley End in 1571.[250] Apparently he began his administration with good intentions. The following note is affixed to his first Revels' estimate, that for the Christmas of 1559-60: