The cast garments were a perquisite of the officers, and were sold by them, doubtless to actors. The change in the Mastership led also to a change in the local habitation of the Revels. It is to be supposed that the buildings with which Cawarden had supplemented the official storehouse were no longer available after they had passed to his executors. In any case, it is clear from the survey of 1586-7 described below that upon Cawarden's death the Office of the Revels was removed to the 'late Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem' in Clerkenwell. Probably the transfer had taken place by 10 June 1560, as an inventory was drawn up on that date of 'certeyne stuff remaynynge in the Black Fryers in London'.[252] The Tents, as well as the Revels, seem to have been moved to St. John's.[253]

In accordance with Benger's request, a survey of the Revels was undertaken, under a warrant from the Privy Council of 27 April 1560, by Sir Richard Sackville and Sir Walter Mildmay, the Under Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a draft of a document submitted to them is preserved at Loseley.[254] This contains a detailed account of the transactions of the Office since the last audit in 1555, as a result of which Cawarden's executors established a claim for a balance or 'surplusage' of £740 13s. 10½d. against the Exchequer. The total expenditure of the Office for the period covering Elizabeth's coronation and first Christmas had been £602 11s. 10d. To the account are appended inventories showing the sets of masking garments which existed in 1555, the materials since issued from the Wardrobe, the use made of both of these in the fashioning of new garments and the 'translation' of old ones, and the sets found in the Office at the time of the survey. These are marked as either 'serviceable' or 'not serviceable' or 'chargeable', but 'fees', and the warrant from the Council instructs the commissioners that cast garments 'being fees incydente to the saide office may be taken by yᵉ Master of yᵉ Revelles & dystributed in soche sorte as haue bene accostomed'. Probably the officers sold them to players.[255] No further detailed accounts are available until the last year of Benger's Mastership, but there are summaries which show an average annual expenditure of about £570.[256] For some reason, there was a great increase of cost in 1571-2, which is the first of a series of years for which elaborate accounts exist in the Record Office. These are of a detailed nature, much like that of Cawarden's accounts at Loseley, and arranged more or less under heads. Schedules of the plays and masks given during the periods to which they relate are in some cases attached. A brief analysis of the account for 1571-2 will show the general character of the entries. I can only dwell here upon those which relate to the organization of the Revels Office, and not upon those of merely dramatic or scenic interest. The main account runs from the end of Shrovetide, 1571, to the end of Shrovetide, 1572, and covers, firstly, a period of nine months from March to November, during which the occupation of the Office was limited to the airing and safeguard of 'stuff' and attendance upon the Master during the progress, and, secondly, an active three months of revels and preparation for revels, from December to February. This expenditure is accounted for under two main heads, Wages and Allowances and Emptions and Provisions. It may be abstracted as follows:

In many cases reference is made to the bills of the tradesmen for further details. At the end of the account is appended a supplementary account, amounting to £26 3s. 2d., for the three months from March to May, 1572, during which a further airing took place. The airings involved an elaborate process of what would now be called the 'spring-cleaning' of all the stuff in the office. There is also a list of six plays and six masks performed during Christmas and Shrovetide. The plays were acted by companies of men or children who were 'apparelled and ffurnished', and provided with 'apt howses, made of canvasse, fframed, ffashioned and paynted accordingly' by the Revels Office. It is noted that the six plays were 'chosen owte of many and ffownde to be the best that then were to be had; the same also being often perused and necessarely corrected and amended by all the afforeseide officers'. Four of the masks were new; the other two 'were but translated and otherwise garnished being of the former number by meanes wherof the chardge of workmanshipp and attendaunce is cheefely to be respected'. It will be observed that the Account does not include any items for the fees of the officers or for the hire of lodgings or storehouses. The former were payable under their patents at the Exchequer, the latter provided in the royal house of St. John's. The officers get an allowance for diet when on active duty, either in the time of airings or in that of revels; and this is fixed, for each day or night, at 4s. for the Master, 2s. for the Clerk Comptroller, 2s. for the Clerk, and 2s. for the Yeoman. There is a similar allowance of 1s. for a Porter, described more fully in a later account as the Porter of St. John's Gate. His name was John Dauncy.[257] The Account discloses some changes in the establishment since 1559. Thomas Blagrave is still Clerk. Richard Lees had been succeeded as Clerk Comptroller on 30 December 1570 by Edward Buggin.[258] During the earlier part of the period John Holt is still Yeoman, but exercises his functions through a deputy, William Bowll, a Yeoman of the Chamber; he was replaced by John Arnold on 11 December 1571.[259] There is a letter to Cecil from William Bowll, written at some date after March 1571, in which he recites that he has recently delivered to Cecil letters from the Lord Treasurer (the Marquis of Winchester), Sir Thomas Benger, and John Holt, for a joint grant of the Yeomanship to himself and John Holt; that he has long served as Holt's deputy and paid him money on a composition as well as meeting some of the debts of the Office; that Holt is now dead and that he and his family will be undone unless Cecil procures him the post.[260] His suit, however, was obviously unsuccessful. Holt's tenure of the Yeomanship had thus extended from 1547 to 1571. He may himself have been an actor, if, as seems likely, he is the 'John Holt, momer', who received rewards for attendance on the Westminster boys at a pageant in 1561.

If Arnold was appointed in the winter of 1571, it was against him, rather than against Holt or his deputy Bowll, that a complaint was lodged with Burghley about a year later by one Thomas Giles. Giles was one of the tradesmen of the Revels. He is described in the Accounts as a haberdasher, and purchases of vizards were made from him. The burden of his complaint was that the officers of the Revels, and particularly the Yeoman, who had the custody of the masking garments, were in the habit of letting these out on hire, to their manifest deterioration, and, one fears, also to the injury of Giles's business. He enumerates twenty-one occasions upon which masks, including the new cloth of gold, black and white, and murrey satin ones, made for the Queen's delectation during the previous Christmas, had been so let out to lords, lawyers, and citizens, in town and country, between January and November 1572.[261]

It is probable that Burghley, who became Lord Treasurer in July 1572, took early steps to look into the administration of the Revels Office, for which the death of Sir Thomas Benger about June of the same year afforded an opportunity.[262] Certainly there was no possibility of bringing about any immediate economy, for the embassy of the Duc de Montmorency from France had already caused a great increase of cost. The Revels bill for 1572-3 amounted to £1,427 12s. 6½d. or very little less than that for 1571-2. Of this about £1,000 was directly due to Montmorency's visit. Moreover, the greater part of the expenditure upon revels was not directly defrayed through the Office. They bought some stuff in the open market, and employed some workmen. But they had also large supplies from the Great Wardrobe, while the structure of banqueting-houses and the like was undertaken by the Office of Works. The total cost, therefore, for any one year would have to be pieced together from the accounts of all three offices. This task has never been essayed, but on Montmorency's coming an imprest of £200 was made to Lewis Stocket, Surveyor of the Works, and another of £300 to John Fortescue, Master of the Great Wardrobe, while a memorandum in Burghley's papers cites a warrant of 12 July 1572 which authorizes the delivery by Fortescue to Benger of stuffs to no less value than £1,757 8s. 1½d.[263]

Pending Burghley's investigation no patent was issued for a successor to Benger. During the Christmas of 1573, the oversight of the Office was committed jointly to Fortescue and to Henry Sackford, the Master of the Tents, and the whole of the account for the period from 1 June 1572 to 31 October 1573 is signed by them, together with the inferior officers of the Revels. There are signs of an ambition towards economy in entries showing that on several occasions during the year claims upon the Office were reduced after examination by the Comptroller and other officers.[264] The auditors in their turn had an eye upon the Office. A sum of £50 was originally included in the account with the explanation:

To this is appended a note:

It may be admitted that the cost of the Revels would have been less if the officers had been in a position to pay for the goods supplied to them in ready money. They probably got small 'imprests' or advances at the beginning of the year when they could, but for the most part they had to obtain credit and satisfy their tradesmen with debentures, redeemable when the accounts had been audited and a warrant under the privy seal for the payment of the certified expenses issued. Elizabeth succeeded to an exchequer already burdened with the debt of past reigns, and the issue of these warrants was often delayed. William Bowll had made it part of his claim to be appointed Yeoman in succession to John Holt that he had made advances for 'payment to the workemen and other poore creditors for mony due unto them in the said office, accordinge to thear necessities before any warant graunted, only for to mayntayn the credit of the said office'. An undated letter is preserved amongst Burghley's papers in which he makes an attempt to recover a sum of £236 due to him for goods supplied over a period of two years and nine months.[266] A similar letter, written on behalf of the creditors and artificers serving the office, and signed by 'Poore Bryan Dodmer a creditour, to saue the labour of a great number whose exclamacion is lamentable', refers specifically to the unpaid balance of the office account on 28 February 1574, which stood at £1,550 5s. 8d.[267] Bryan Dodmer had received a legacy from Sir Thomas Cawarden in 1559, and is shown by the account of 1571-2 to have been at that time occupied in the affairs of the Revels Office, although not on the establishment. To 1573 and 1574 may be ascribed three memoranda, which were evidently prepared for Burghley's assistance in considering schemes of reform. Two of these, although longer than can be printed here, are singularly illuminating to students of departmental history. One, in particular, gives a very capable summary of the situation, and is informed by a good deal of sound administrative sense.[268] It begins with a short historical notice of the origin and foundation of the Revels and a suggestion for a fresh amalgamation of the Mastership with those of the Tents and Toils. The writer then considers the possibility of either farming out the office, or fixing a definite allowance for all ordinary charges, and rejects both proposals as impracticable. Nor does he see much room for economy in the 'airings', or in a reduction in the number of officers; on the contrary, he is in favour of supplementing the Master, who must give attendance at Court, by a working head of the Office with the rank of Serjeant. He lays stress on the importance of co-operation amongst the officers, and while not prepared to abrogate the quasi-independence of the Master which the appointment of the inferior officers by patent gave them, submits an elaborate draft of new ordinances provisionally dated in the regnal year 1572-3, and intended to replace those which he understands to have been delivered 'before my time' to some of the Queen's Privy Council.[269] This deals, not only with the functions of each officer, but also with the time-table of the year's work, the control of the artificers, the economical employment of wardrobe stuff, the books to be kept, and the avoidance of debt by a liberal imprest. An historian of the stage can wish that the suggestion had been adopted for order to be annually given 'to a connynge paynter to enter into a fayer large ligeard booke in the manner of limnynge the maskes and shewes sett fourthe in that last seruice, to thende varyetye may be vsed from tyme to tyme'. I think that the author of this document was probably Buggin, the Clerk Comptroller, since the two other memoranda are clearly on internal evidence the work of Blagrave, the Clerk, and one of the Yeomen, and Burghley is likely to have given each officer a chance of expressing his views. It might, however, have been Henry Sackford, in view of the suggestion for amalgamation with the Tents, and in any case Buggin probably had Sackford's interests in mind, not to speak of his own chances of obtaining the contemplated Serjeanty. Blagrave's proposals are in matters of detail not unlike Buggin's, but he does not endorse the suggestion of a Serjeant, and is less skilful in keeping his personal ambitions in the background.[270]

The Yeoman's Memorandum is short enough to be given in full.[271]

This is endorsed,

The documents are proposals for reform rather than statements of existing practice; but proposals for reform made by permanent officials are not generally very sweeping, and I think it may be taken that we get a pretty fair notion of the actual working of a Government department in the sixteenth century, not without certain hints of jealousies and disputes between the various officers as to their respective functions and privileges, which in those days as in these occasionally tended to interfere with the smooth working of the machine. The determination of these functions and privileges by regulation; the keeping of regular books, inventories, journals, and ledgers; the institution of a system of finance which would avoid the necessity of employing credit; the prohibition of the hiring-out of Revels stuff; these are amongst the improvements in organization which suggested themselves to practical men who were not in the least likely to suggest the transference of the duties of their own rather superfluous Office to the Office of Works or the Wardrobe. Both Buggin and Blagrave ask that the hands of the officers might be strengthened by a commission; that is, apparently, a warrant entitling them to enforce service on behalf of the Crown, such as the Master of the Children of the Chapel had to 'take up' singing-boys, and other departments of the Household, including probably the Tents, had for the purveyance of provisions and cartage. Probably the Revels had already enjoyed this authority upon special occasions. The Account for the banqueting house of 1572 includes an item for 'flowers of all sortes taken up by comyssion and gathered in the feeldes'.[272] At the bottom of the documents there is a feeling that the weak point in the organization is the Mastership. The Master had to be a courtier, dancing attendance on the Queen and the Lord Chamberlain, and was likely to have the qualities and failings of a courtier; and then he came to the office, and gave instructions to people who knew their own business much better than he did.

Blagrave's ambitions to become Master of the Office were not wholly gratified. He was allowed to act as Master for some years, but he never received a patent, and after Benger's death he had the mortification of seeing the post given to another, while he was left to content himself with his much despised Clerkship. His regency lasted from November 1573 until Christmas 1579, and his signature stands alone or heads those of the other officers upon the Accounts relating to that period, with the exception of the last, on which the name of the incoming Master appears.[273] His appointment was presumably from year to year. It is stated in the Account for 1573-4 to have been made by 'her Majestie's pleasure signefyed by the right honorable L. Chamberlaine', and in that for 1574-5 to appear from 'sundry letters from the Lorde Chamberlayne'. And the vacancy emphasized the dependence of the Revels upon that great branch of the tripartite Household, the Chamber, over which the Lord Chamberlain presided. All Blagrave's activities were subject to control by his superior officer. He and his subordinates were constantly going by boat or horse to Richmond, or wherever the Court might be, to take instructions from the Lord Chamberlain, to submit patterns of masks and alterations of plays, and to obtain payment of expenses.[274] Blagrave himself had a house at Bedwyn in Wiltshire, and couriers were sometimes sent after him when his presence in London was urgently needed.[275] Upon his entrance into office the officers were called together 'for colleccion and showe of eche thinge prepared for her Maiesties regall disporte and recreacion as also the store wherewith to ffurnish, garnish and sett forth the same; wherof, as also of the whole state of the office the L. Chamberlayne according to his honours appointment was throughly advertised'.[276] The store was also carefully perused and the inventories checked upon the death of John Arnold the Yeoman, and the appointment on 29 January 1574 of Walter Fish in his room.[277] The Accounts continue to include allowances for the diet of the Clerk as well as that of the Master. I have no doubt that Blagrave was quite capable of drawing them both; but it is also likely enough that some unestablished person undertook the duties of 'Acting' Clerk. If so, this was most probably Bryan Dodmer, who was very useful on financial business during 1573-4 and 1574-5. After this year he disappears from the Accounts and his place is apparently taken by John Drawater. William Bowll, the ex-Deputy-Yeoman and silkweaver, and Thomas Giles, the haberdasher, in spite of their complaints against the Office, continue to supply it with goods.[278]

The general character of the Accounts, both under Fortescue and Sackford, and under Blagrave, is much the same as that of the one, already analysed, for 1571-2. Periods of activity, mainly at Christmas and Shrovetide, still alternate with periods of quiescence, stock-taking, and 'airing'. Occasionally the Office has to bestir itself to accompany a progress.[279] Some unusually detailed entries in 1576-7 give interesting information as to the rates of wages ordinarily paid to workmen. The head tailor got 20d. for each day or night, and other tailors 12d. Carpenters got 16d.; the Porter and other attendants 12d. Painters, haberdashers, property-makers, joiners, carvers, and wire-drawers were paid 'at sundrie rates'. In a later year, 1579-80, the first and second painter got 2s. and 20d. respectively, and the rest 18d. The first wire-drawer got 20d., and the rest 16d.[280] The payments for night-work really represent double wages for overtime, since we learn from Buggin and Blagrave that the length of a night was reckoned at about half that of a day. The workmen who waited on the mask before Montmorency in 1572 got extra rewards, because they 'had no tyme to eat theyer supper'; and while the banqueting-house was building Bryan Dodmer had to buy bread and cheese 'to serve the plasterers that wroughte all the nighte and mighte not be spared nor trusted to go abrode to supper'.[281] An important function of the Office consisted in 'calling together of sundry players and pervsing, fitting and reformyng theier matters (otherwise not convenient to be showen before her Maiestie)'.[282] Dodmer paid 40s. in 1574-5 for 'paynes in pervsing and reformyng of playes sundry tymes as neede required for her Maiestie's lyking', and it is a pity that the name of the payee is left blank in the Account.[283] When the plays had been chosen and knocked into shape, they had to be rehearsed. Now and then they were taken before the Lord Chamberlain for this purpose; but as a rule the rehearsals went on in the presence of the officers at St. John's. Here were a 'greate chambere where the workes were doone and the playes rezited', a storehouse, and the mansions of the officers. The Clerk had an office with a nether room next the yard.[284] Fish complains of the inconvenience of having only one room for every kind of artificer to work in. Items for yellow cotton to line 'the Monarkes gowne' and for his jerkin and hose perhaps point to the use of a lay figure.[285] One Nicholas Newdigate was extremely useful in hearing and training the children who frequently performed.[286] Naturally these gave a good deal of trouble. At Shrovetide 1574 nine of them were employed for a mask at Hampton Court. They had diet and lodging at St. John's, 'whiles thay learned theier partes and jestures meete for the mask'. They were taken from Paul's Wharf to Hampton Court in a barge with six oars and two 'tylt whirreys'. They arrived on Monday, but the Queen would not see them until the Tuesday, and they were lodged for the two nights at Mother Sparo's at Kingston. An Italian woman and her daughter were employed to dress their heads. When they got back to London on Ash-Wednesday, 'sum of them being sick and colde and hungry', fire and victuals were provided at Blackfriars. Each child received a reward of 1s.[287] Trouble was caused also sometimes by the behaviour of the courtiers who took part in festivities. Six horns garnished with silver were provided at a cost of 18s., for a mask of hunters on 1 January 1574, and there is a note in the Account that these horns 'the maskers detayned and yet dooth kepe them against the will of all the officers'. This sort of difficulty was traditional. It was already perplexing the worthy Gibson more than half a century before.[288] That the practice of lending out the Revels stuff was not wholly abandoned is shown by an application from Magdalen College, Oxford, to Tilney in 1592 for furniture for a play.[289] Finance was also a cause of trouble. On his appointment in 1573 Blagrave succeeded in obtaining a 'prest' of £200 to begin the year upon. In 1574 he did the same, but not until Dodmer had applied in vain to the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Treasurer, and Mr. Secretary Walsingham, and was finally 'after long attendaunce (and that none of the afore-named coulde get the Queenes Maiestie to resolve therin) dryven to trouble her Maiestie himselfe and by special peticion obtayned as well the grawnt for ccˡᶦ in prest as the dettes to be paid'. At the end of each year there were formalities and delays to be gone through before the bills could be paid. The accounts had to be made up, to be passed by the auditors, and to be declared before the Lord Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then a royal warrant had to be obtained for a privy seal, then the privy seal itself, and finally actual payment at the Exchequer. All these processes necessitated constant fees and gratuities. In 1579 the estimated charges for audit and payment amounted to £8. For his considerable financial services in 1574-5 Bryan Dodmer demanded £13 6s. 8d., but this was ruthlessly cut down by the officers to £6 13s. 4d. They in their turn found the auditor disallowing a small payment because it had been entered in the books after the sum had been cast, and was not properly certified. Dodmer had advanced the money, but he could not be repaid until the following year.[290]

A letter of 8 April 1577 from Leicester to Burghley reminds him that a certain suit of Sir Jerome Bowes and others 'touching plays' had been referred to them, together with the Lord Chamberlain, by the Queen for consideration. They had 'myslyked of the perpetuytie they sutors desierd', but a report still had to be made.[291] There is nothing to show the nature of this 'suit', but it is not unnatural to conjecture that it arose in some way out of the vacancy in the Mastership. No more, however, is heard of Sir Jerome Bowes in this connexion. It was not until seven years after Benger's death that Blagrave met with the rebuff of finding himself passed over in favour of an outsider, and reduced to his former position of Clerk, with its subordinate duties and its miserable allowances for the 'ordynary grene cloth, paper, incke, counters, deskes, standishes', and so forth. The new Master was Edmund Tilney, who had dedicated to Elizabeth, in 1568, a dialogue on matrimony under the title of The Flower of Friendship. Tilney was a connexion of Lord Howard of Effingham, to whose influence at Court he probably owed his appointment. His patent is dated on 24 July 1579, but the fee was to run from the previous Christmas, and he may therefore have formally assumed his duties at that period. His signature is attached with those of Blagrave and the other officers to the Account for the whole of the period from 14 February 1578 to 31 October 1579, but the details do not afford any evidence that he took a personal share in the work of the Office.[292] In 1581 he was spoken of as a possible ambassador to Spain, but this does not appear to have led to anything.[293]

Only a few detailed Accounts belonging to Tilney's Mastership are in existence. These are made up regularly from each 1 November to the following 31 October. They do not disclose any noteworthy change in the previous routine of the Office. On 8 August 1580 Thomas Sackford, a Master of the Requests, and Sir Owen Hopton, the Lieutenant of the Tower, were instructed by the Council to take a view of the Revels stuff upon the appointment of the new Master, and to deliver inventories of the same to Tilney. Accordingly, a charge of 40s. 'for the ingrossinge of three paire of indentid inventories' appears in the Account.[294] Blagrave appears to have sulked at first, for in 1581 the employment of a professional scribe to make up the accounts was explained by the absence of a clerk. The auditors, very properly, made a marginal note of surprise, and Blagrave resumed his duties.[295] In 1582-3 considerable repairs were required at the Revels Office, owing to the fact that a chamber which formed part of Blagrave's lodging had fallen down. An office and a chamber for the Master seem for a time to have been provided at Court during the attendance of the Master, and warmed with billets and coals at the expense of the Revels, but by 1587-8 they had been crowded out, and an allowance of 10s. was made for the hire of rooms.[296] Another entry for 1582-3 marks an epoch of some importance in the history of the Elizabethan stage. On 10 March 1583 Tilney was summoned to Court by a letter from Mr. Secretary [Walsingham] 'to choose out a companie of players for her Maiestie'. Horse hire and charges on the journey cost him 20s.[297] Outside the Accounts there is one document of considerable interest belonging to the early years of Tilney's rule. This is a patent, dated 24 December 1581, and giving to the Master of the Revels such a 'commission' or grant of exceptional powers over the subjects of the realm, as had been stated in the Memoranda of 1573 to be eminently desirable in the interests of the office.[298] The Master is authorized to take and retain such workmen 'at competent wages', and take such 'stuff, ware, or merchandise', 'at price reasonable', together with such 'carriages', by land and by water, as he may consider to be necessary or expedient for the service of the Revels. He or his deputy may commit recalcitrant persons to ward. He may protect his workmen from arrest, and they are not to be liable to forfeit if their service in the Revels obliges them to break outside contracts for piece-work. The licensing powers also conferred upon the Master by this patent are considered elsewhere.[299]

Tilney's accession to office coincided with the beginning of the period of heightened splendour in Court entertainments, due to the negotiations for Elizabeth's marriage with the Duke of Anjou.[300] A magnificent banqueting-house was built at Whitehall, and Sidney, Fulke Greville, and others, equipped as the Foster Children of Desire, besieged the Fortress of Perfect Beauty in the tilt-yard. One might have expected to find a considerably larger expenditure accounted for by the officers of the Revels. But this was not so, except for the one winter of Anjou's visit. The cost of the Office, which in 1571-3 had grown to about £1,500 a year, rapidly fell again. In 1573-4 it was about £670; in 1574-5 about £580; and thereafter it generally stood at not more than from £250 to £350. In 1581-2, however, it reached £630.[301] It is probable that the figures do not point to any real reduction of expenditure, but only mean that, after the experience of John Fortescue, the Master of the Wardrobe, as Acting Master of the Revels in 1572-3, it was found economical to supply the needs of the Office, to a greater extent even than in the past, through the organization of the Wardrobe and the Office of Works, instead of by the direct purchase of goods or employment of labour in the open market. Stowe records, for example, that the banqueting-house of 1581 cost £1,744 19s., but no part of this appears in the Revels Account, although the banqueting-house of 1572 had cost the Office £224 6s. 10d.[302] Probably it was all met by the Office of Works. About 1596 a further reform in the interests of economy was attempted, by the establishment of a fixed annual allowance for expenses, including the 'wages' or 'diet' hitherto allowed to the officers for each day or night of actual attendance at 'airings' or at the rehearsals or performances of plays. The last payment under the old system was made on 30 May 1594 by a warrant to Tilney for a sum of £311 2s. 2d. in respect of works and wares and officers' wages for 1589-92, together with an imprest of £100 for 1592-3.[303] The next warrant was made out on 25 January 1597, and directed the payment of £200 for 1593-6, together with an annual payment of £66 6s. 8d., 'as composition for defraying the charges of the office for plays only, according to a rate of a late reformation and composition for ordinary charges there'.[304] The amount of £311 2s. 2d. paid for the three years 1589-92 is so small as to suggest that the distinction between 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary' charges may have already existed during the period, and may thus have preceded the reduction of 'ordinary' charges to a 'composition'. The warrant of 25 January 1597, however, never became operative. There is an entry of it in the Docquet Book of the Signet Office, and in the margin are the notes 'Remanet: neuer passed the Seales' and 'Staid by the Lord Threasorer: vacat'. Fortunately we are able to trace the causes which led to this interposition by Burghley. It will perhaps be remembered that Edward Buggin, in his Memorandum of 1573, had considered a possible reform of the administration of the Revels Office on lines very similar to those now adopted, and had decided that it was impracticable.[305] Doubtless the same view was held by the officers of 1597, and after the manner of permanent officials they took steps to ensure that it should be impracticable. Disputes arose between the Master and the inferior officers as to the distribution of the sum allowed for ordinary charges, and, pending a settlement of these, all payments out of the Office were suspended. The result was a memorial to Burghley from the 'creditors and servitors' of the Revels, which called attention to the fact that five years' arrears due to them were withheld 'only throughe the discention amoungest the officers'.[306]

This was in the first instance referred to Tilney for his observations, and he writes: