Dramatic records of Henry VIII’s reign are very scarce, and therefore it may be of interest to some students to have the text of a little Chancery suit to which I was guided through the studies of Mr. J. S. Young. It is undated by the scribe, but a proximate date may be reckoned. The appeal was addressed to “Sir Thomas Awdley,” who was appointed Chancellor in 1533, and he was made Lord Audley of Walden, 29th November 1538. The complaint states that the company were Queen Jane’s players, “late her servants.” As she was married only in June 1536, and as the cause of the dispute was referred back to “a year and three quarters past,” and she died in 1537, the complaint must have been brought just before the Chancellor was ennobled in 1538.
The document does not tell us much. It only gives the names of the chief members of the company as John Young, John Sly, David Sotherne, and John Mountfield (names that appear in the Lord Chamberlain’s books); and shows that they had been travelling professionally in “the northern parts,” and came to trouble over their packhorse.
The only earlier notice of “the Queen’s company” was in 1532, when it must have been Queen Katherine’s, whose waning power may have accounted for the trifling reward at Oxford “given to her players by the President’s orders,” viz. 12d. (E. K. Chambers, ii, 249.)
Early Chancery Proceedings. Uncalendared
(Bundle 931, 11, Y., no date given.)
To Sir Thomas Awdley, Lord Chancellor.
In most humble wise sheweth unto your goode Lordshippe your dayly orator John Yonge mercer, that whereas he with one John Slye, David Sotherne, and John Mounffeld, late servants unto the most gracious Queene Jane, abought a yere and 3 quarters past, to thentent for the further increase of lyvinge to travail into the north partes in exercising theire usuall feates of playinge in interludes, he your said orator, with his other companions aforesaid, hyred a gelding of oon Randolphe Starkey to beare there playing garments, paying for the use of the same gelding twenty pence weekley till there comyng home ageyne, at which time the said Starkey well and truly promysed to your said orator and other his said companions that the said gelding should be goode, and able to performe there journey where of trouthe the same geldinge was defectyve, and skarsly servyed them in there said journey, by the space of four wekes, by occasion whereof your said orator, with other his said companyons, susteyned great damadge, as may evidently appere to all that have experience in such travayles and affayres. Ageynst whom they can attayne small redress onles they shuld leve other their more necessary affayers to be undoon, yet nevertheless the said Starkey, intending to have more for the hyer of the said geldinge then of equitie is due, And also to charge your said orator of the hoolle hyer, where of trought he made his bargayne and receyved ernest for the hyer of the said geldinge, as well of thother thre aforenamed as of your said orator. He late commenced a playnt of det uppon the demande of twenty-four shillings only agaynst your said orator before the Sheriffes of London, who uppon the same caused hym to be arrested, in which accion he declared upon a graunte of payment of forty shillings for the said geldinge to be made by yor said orator sole, whereof he affyrmed hymself to be satisfied of sixteen shillings, wherewith yor said orator, having no lerned councill, pleaded that he owed him nothinge, &c.... In which Accyon your said Orator is nowe lyke to be condempned onles yor goode Lordshippes lefful favour be to hym shewed in this behalf. In consideracion whereof it may please the same to graunte a writ of Cerciorari to be directed unto the Lord Mayor and Sherevez of London commandinge theym by the same to remove the tenor and cause of youre saide orator’s arrest before your Lordship in the King’s Highe Courte of the Chancery at a certaine daye by your gracious Lordship to be lymytted, to thentent the cyrcumstances thereof maye be by your saide Lordeship examined and ordered according to equytie and good conscience. And your said orator shall ever more praye to God for the prosperous preservation of your goode Lordship in Honor.
Atkyns (attorney).
Further papers concerning this suit do not seem to have been preserved. But it gives the earliest picture yet known of “the glorious vagabonds who erstwhile carried fardels on their backs” under the title of “the Queen’s players.”
“Athenæum,” 24th January 1914.