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

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]

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

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 ‘xvid. 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:

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

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 vjd.’, ‘For a lynke to bring thapparell from the reuells iiijd.’, ‘At the playing of Miles Glor: in M^r. Deanes howse for pinnes half a thousand vjd.’, ‘Geuen to M^r. Holte yeoman of the reuells xs.’, ‘To M^r. Taylor his man’, ‘For one Plautus geven to ye Queenes maiestie and fowre other vnto the nobilitie xjs.’ 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

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]

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

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]

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:

In 1586 Mulcaster quarrelled with the Merchant Taylors and resigned. In 1596 he became High Master of St. Paul’s grammar school, but it is only conjecture that his influence counted for anything in the revival of plays by the choir master, Edward Pearce. Regular plays at Merchant Taylors probably ceased on his withdrawal. When Sir Robert Lee, one of the Company, became Lord Mayor in 1602, a payment was made to Mr. Haines, the Schoolmaster, for a wagon and the apparel of ten scholars, who represented Apollo and the Muses in Cheapside. But when James came to dine at the hall on 16 July 1607, it was thought best to apply for help to Heminges of the King’s men and Nathaniel Giles of the Chapel, on the ground that the Schoolmaster and children were not familiar with such entertainments.[221]

ix. THE EARL OF LEICESTER’S BOYS

Vide ch. xiii (Earl of Leicester’s men).

x. THE EARL OF OXFORD’S BOYS

Vide ch. xiii (Earl of Oxford’s men).

xi. MR. STANLEY’S BOYS

Vide ch. xiii (Earl of Derby’s men).