The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 1

by E. K. Chambers

FOOTNOTES

[1] Francis to Sir Thomas Chaloner (Dec. 1563) in Froude, vii. 92; cf. Sp. P. i. 10, 127; V. P. vii. 80, 101.

[2] Camden (tr.), 179; Bohun, 345, from R. Johnston, Hist. rerum Brit. (1655), 353; Carey, 2.

[3] Sp. P. iii. 91.

[4] Sp. P. iv. 650; Chamberlain, 99, 126; Hatfield MSS. xii. 253; Boissise, i. 415; Beaumont, 21; Goodman, i. 17.

[5] Carleton to Chamberlain, Jan. 15, 1604 (S. P. D., Jac. I, vi. 21): 'The first holy dayes we had every night a publicke play in the great hale, at which the king was ever present, and liked or disliked as he saw cause; but it seems he takes no extraordinary pleasure in them. The Queen and Prince were more the players frends, for on other nights they had them privately, and hath since taken them to theyr protection.'

[6] J. A. Lester, Some Franco-Scottish Influences on the Early English Drama in Haverford Essays (1909).

[7] Scaramelli wrote to the Signory in July 1603 (V. P. x. 71) that James had eight palaces on the Thames, of which Hampton Court was the biggest. Each had its own furniture, which was never taken to furnish another. I suppose the eight must be Whitehall, St. James's, Somerset House, the Tower, Greenwich, Richmond, Hampton Court, and Windsor. Letters of 1602, when Elizabeth was at Oatlands, contemplate her return to 'Richmond or some other of her houses of abode' and to 'a standing house' (Hatfield MSS. xii. 385, 448). I suppose that these were the permanently furnished houses.

[8] Cheyney, i. 143, says that the Exchequer court near Westminster Hall, the gallery of which was built or repaired in 1570, 'served the queen and court not infrequently as a ball-room'; but this is only an old tradition, for which Smith, Westminster, 54, could find no confirmation in 1807, and for which the records of Court entertainments certainly furnish none.

[9] The accounts of Smith and Sheppard (cf. Bibl. Note) may be supplemented from W. R. Lethaby in Archaeologia, lx. 131; London Topographical Record, i. 38; ii. 23; vi. 23, 35; vii. passim. Von Wedel (2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. ix. 234) describes the palace in 1584.

[10] E. B. Chancellor, Historical Richmond (1885); R. Garnett, Richmond on the Thames (1896); Chapman, 123; Survey of 1503 in Grose and Astle, Antiquarian Repertory; Survey of 1649 in Nichols, Eliz. ii. 412.

[11] E. Law, History of Hampton Court Palace (1885-91); W. H. Hutton, Hampton Court (1897). De Silva reports to Philip on 13 Oct. 1567 (Sp. P. i. 679) that Elizabeth was then at Hampton Court for the first time since her attack of small-pox there in 1562, after which she took a dislike to it. It was the largest of all the palaces, 'with 1800 inhabitable rooms or at least with doors that lock' (V. P. x. 71).

[12] A. G. K. L'Estrange, The Palace and the Hospital: Chronicles of Greenwich (1886); Chapman, 9. The building is shown in Wyngaerde's drawing of c. 1543 (Mitton, I). Hentzner was told in 1598 that it was Elizabeth's preferred abode.

[13] W. H. St. J. Hope, Windsor Castle (1913); R. R. Tighe and J. E. Davis, Annals of Windsor (1858); E. Ashmole, The Institution, Lawes and Ceremonies of the Garter (1672); J. Pote, History and Antiquities of Windsor Castle (1749); G. M. Hughes, Windsor Forest (1890).

[14] R. Gower, The Tower of London (1901-2); Clapham and Godfrey, 29. Elizabeth was there in 1559, 1561, and 1565.

[15] For its mediaeval use as an occasional royal lodging, cf. N. H. Nicolas, Wardrobe Accounts of Edw. IV, 121, 127.

[16] W. J. Loftie, Memorials of the Savoy (1878); Chapman, 42.

[17] Elizabeth paid visits there in 1559, 1562, 1564, 1566, and 1575.

[18] Chapman, 36; Clapham and Godfrey, 119.

[19] S. Pegge, Curialia (1806); R. Needham and A. Webster, Somerset House, Past and Present (1905). Elizabeth was there in 1558, 1562, 1571, 1573, 1582, 1583, 1585, 1587, 1588, 1589, 1590, 1593, 1594, and 1599. She gave lodgings there to Somerset's son, the Earl of Hertford, and amongst other guests were the Duke of Holstein (1560), Cornelius de la Noye, an alchemist (1567), the Duke of Montmorency (1572), and the Duke of Mayenne (1600). Conferences were held there with Alençon's commissioners in 1581. In 1574 (Berkeley MSS. 223) the keepership was given to Henry Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, who took up his residence there, and after his death to Lady Hunsdon. In early documents of the reign, the name Strand House (P. C. Acts, Jan. 1563; Procl. 496) or Strand Place (Procl. 497) occurs; in the patent of Hunsdon's predecessor John West in 1559 (Berkeley MSS. 218) it is 'Somersett Place al. Strande House al. Somersett House'.

[20] M. A. S. Hume, A Palace in the Strand in The Year after the Armada (1896), 263; Nichols, James, i. 75; Clapham and Godfrey, 151; T. N. Brushfield, The History of Durham House, London, in Trans. of Devon. Assoc. xxxv. 539. Elizabeth was there in 1565 or 1566. Lodgings were assigned to Alvaro de la Quadra, the Spanish ambassador (1559-63), Cecilia of Sweden, Margravine of Baden (1565), Walter, Earl of Essex (1572), Sir Walter Raleigh (1584-1603), Sir Edward Darcy (c. 1600-3). In 1603 James turned Raleigh and Darcy out and restored the freehold to Toby Mathew, Bishop of Durham, who retained the river front, and leased the Gatehouse on the Strand. The lease passed to Lord Salisbury, who built there the New Exchange or Britain's Burse in 1609.

[21] L. Hendriks, The London Charterhouse (1889); W. F. Taylor, The Charterhouse of London (1912). The Charterhouse, after temporary use as a storehouse for the Tents (cf. Tudor Revels, 13), was granted to Sir Edward North, afterwards Lord North of Kirtling, in 1545 and the grant was confirmed by Mary in 1554. Elizabeth visited him there in Nov. 1558 and July 1561. After his death in 1564 the second lord kept a house in Charterhouse Square, which passed to the Earls of Rutland and as Rutland House became the scene of Davenant's First Day's Entertainment in 1656. The main building was bought in 1565 by Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and called Howard Place. Elizabeth visited him there in 1568. On his attainder in 1572, she lodged the Portuguese ambassador in the house, but afterwards granted it to Norfolk's son Thomas, Lord Howard of Walden, whom she visited there in Jan. 1603. In 1611 Thomas Sutton bought the Charterhouse from Howard for a hospital. On the Blackfriars and Whitefriars, cf. ch. xvii.

[22] Clapham and Godfrey, 165; cf. ch. iii.

[23] E. Sheppard, Memorials of St. James's Palace (1894). Elizabeth was there in 1561, 1564, 1566, 1571, 1572, 1575, 1576, 1581, 1583, 1584, 1588, and 1593.

[24] V. H. Surrey, iii. 478. Elizabeth was there in 1560, 1562, 1564, 1567, 1569, 1570, 1574, 1577, 1580, 1582, 1583, 1584, 1585, 1587, 1589, 1590, 1591, 1593, 1600, and 1602.

[25] V. H. Surrey, iii. 266; Gent. Mag. viii. (1837) 139; Clapham and Godfrey, 3. Elizabeth was there in 1559, 1563, 1565, 1567, 1574, 1580-5 (yearly), 1587, 1589, 1591, 1592, 1593, 1594, 1595, 1596, 1598, 1599, 1600. The house was begun by Henry VIII and finished by Lord Lumley, son-in-law of the Earl of Arundel, to whom the property was alienated in 1556. Elizabeth bought the house about 1590-2. 'Nonsuch, which of all other places she likes best,' wrote Rowland White in 1599 (Sydney Papers, ii. 120).

[26] For Eltham (visits in 1559, 1560, 1576, 1581, 1596, 1597, 1598, 1599, 1601, 1602), once an important palace, cf. J. C. Buckler, Account of Eltham (1828), Chapman, 1, Clapham and Godfrey, 47; for Havering (visits in 1561, 1568, 1572, 1576, 1578, 1579, 1591, 1597), Nichols, Eliz. iii. 70, Clapham and Godfrey, 145; for Hatfield (visits in 1558, 1566, 1568, 1571, 1572, 1575, 1576), V. H. Herts. iii. 92; for Reading (visits in 1568, 1570, 1572, 1574, 1576, 1592, 1601), J. B. Hurry, Reading Abbey (1901), T. J. Pettigrew in Journal of Brit. Arch. Ass. xvi. 192; for Woodstock (visits in 1566, 1572, 1574, 1575, 1592), E. Marshall, Early Hist. of Woodstock Manor (1873), and ch. xxiii, s.v. Lee. Elizabeth was at Enfield in 1561, 1564, 1568, 1572, 1587, 1591, 1594, 1597, and at Winchester in 1560, 1574, 1591.

[27] Schedules of royal houses and other possessions to which places of profit were attached form part of the Fee Lists described in the Bibl. Note to ch. ii. That of 1598 (H. O. 262) includes 37 castles under constables, keepers, or porters, 17 other houses, 11 forests, and 8 parks, together with the Fleet prison under a warden keeper, the Baths (at Bath) under a keeper, the Haven of the Duchy of Cornwall under a havenor, the Honour of Tutbury under a steward, and Paris Garden under the keepers of Bears and Mastiffs (cf. ch. xvi, s.v. Hope); in all 78.

[28] Occasionally it was still used as a guesthouse. The Constable of Castile was lodged here in 1604, the Danish ambassador in 1605, Christian of Denmark in 1606 and 1614. Fuller, Church History, vii. 46, says that the name Denmark House was adopted by proclamation in honour of King Christian, but I can find no such proclamation. Arthur Wilson (Compleat Hist. ii. 685) dates the change c. 1610, and says that the new name 'continued her time among her people; but it was afterwards left out of the common calendar, like the dead Emperor's new-named month'. On the other hand I find Cecil dating from 'Queens Court' on 6 March 1605 (S. P. D. xiii. 15), Chamberlain writing in Feb. 1614 of the performance of Daniel's Hymen's Triumph that it was in a 'little square paved court' at 'Somerset House or Queens Court, as it must now be called' (W. W. Greg in M. L. Q. vi. 59, from Addl. MS. 4173, ff. 368, 371), and plays acted by Anne's men 'at Queenes Court' in 1615 (cf. App. B). The reason suggested in the text for the second attempt to change the name seems to me a plausible conjecture. Perhaps 'Denmark House' was tried at Christian's second visit in 1614. In any case, neither novelty permanently established itself. The first use of 'Denmark House' I have noticed is in 1615; that of 'Somerset House' was resumed under Charles I.

[29] Lodge, iii. 62; Birch, i. 279; Devon, 63, 176; V. P. x. 87; xiii. 81; S. P. D., Jac. I, xxvii. 31; lxv. 79, 80; V. H. Surrey, iii. 478; V. H. Herts. iii. 447; Goodman, i. 174; J. E. Cussans, Hist. of Herts., pts. ix, x. 209; Nichols, James ii. 127. Theobalds, in Cheshunt, had been often visited by Elizabeth; cf. App. A. James had already been there yearly in 1603-1606, and found it convenient for Waltham Forest.

[30] Green, 7; V. P. x. 71.

[31] Green, 8, 17; V. P. xii. 194; Pory to Sir Thomas Puckering (3 Jan. 1633) in Court and Time of Charles I, ii. 213: 'In case the Queen [of Bohemia] do come for England, I hear that her lodging appointed in court is the Cockpit, at Whitehall, where she lay when she was a maid.' On the Cockpit, cf. ch. vii.

[32] Birch, Life of Henry, 330; Cunningham, viii; V. P. xii. 194, 207; Devon 153, 164, 179; S. P. D., Jac. I, viii. 104; Marshall, Woodstock, 174.

[33] Devon, 37, 80; V. P. xiii. 81; Birch, i. 41.

[34] James was at Richmond in 1605, 1606, 1607, and 1611, at Oatlands in 1604, 1606, 1607, 1608, 1610, 1611, 1613, and 1615, and at Woodstock in 1603, 1604, 1605, 1610, 1612, and 1614. Some of his hunting trophies are still preserved at Ditchley Park; cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Lee. Theobalds, like Royston, he visited several times a year. Evidently it was more his than Anne's. In 1607 and 1615 his departure from London is spoken of as going 'home' (Birch, i. 68, 298).

[35] V. H. Herts. iii. 253.

[36] Abstract, 52.

[37] T. F. Ordish in L. T. R. viii. 6. The road crossed Holborn at Kingsgate.

[38] Law, Hampton Court, i. 1.

[39] At the wedding of Princess Elizabeth in 1613 (Rimbault, 163) James went 'from his Privie Chamber, throughe the presence and garde chamber, and throughe a new bankettinge house erected of purpose for to solemnenize this feast in, and so doune a paire of stayers at the upper end therof hard by the Courte gate, wente alonge uppon a stately scaffold to the great chamber stayers, and throughe the greate chamber and lobby to the clossett, doune the staiers to the Chappell'; cf. Pegge, i. 68. Traces of the Great Chamber at Whitehall possibly still exist, over the building known as Cardinal Wolsey's cellar (L. T. R. vii. 40).

[40] Davison to Leicester (1586, Hardwicke Papers, i. 302): 'I found her majesty alone, retired into her withdrawing chamber'; Lord Talbot to Anon. (1587, Rutland MSS. i. 213): 'She had my wife called in to the withdrawing chamber, where no one but the Queen, my Lord, and Secretary Walsingham were'; Sussex to Burghley (1573, 2 Ellis, iii. 27): 'The Queen sate in the grete Closette or Parler [at Greenwich]'; R. Cecil to Essex (1596, Devereux, i. 347), reporting that Sir A. Shirley was 'used with great favour, both in the privy and drawing chambers'. The 'Withdrawing Chamber' of Law's Hampton Court plan appears to be the Privy Chamber. They were certainly distinct at Richmond in 1600, for Vereiken was taken through the Privy Chamber for an audience in the Withdrawing Chamber (Sydney Papers, ii. 170).

[41] Cf. ch. iv.

[42] H. O. 154 (1526); Procl. 962 (1603).

[43] Pegge, i. 68.

[44] V. P. vii. 91 (1559, Montmorency); ix. 531 (1603, Scaramelli).

[45] Cf. App. F. Von Wedel (2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. ix. 250) describes the ceremony at Hampton Court in 1584.

[46] V. P. x. 46, 121; xi. 430; xii. 273, 547; Gawdy, 132; Birch, i. 69; Sully, Mémoires, 469. Von Wedel, however, saw Elizabeth dine in state at Greenwich in 1584 (loc. cit., 262).

[47] Cf. ch. vii.

[48] The position of the Hall at Whitehall can be fairly well identified as extending across Horse Guards Avenue; cf. L. T. R. vii. 41.

[49] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 189; Reyher, 336.

[50] Tudor Revels, 17; Hatfield MSS. i. 92, from which it appears that there was one house only, with a kitchen, and also stands in Hyde and Marylebone Parks.

[51] V. P. vii. 91; Holinshed, iii. 1510; Machyn, 203: 'The x day of July was set up in Greenwich park a goodly banketting-house made with fir powlles, and deckyd with byrche and all manner of flowers of the feld and gardennes, as roses, gelevors, lavender, marygolds, and all maner of strowhyng erbes and flowrs'; Feuillerat, Eliz. 81: 'Robert Trunckewell ... woorking ... vppon toe modells of the Masters device for a rowfe and a cobboorde of a bancketinge howse', 97, 106.

[52] Feuillerat, Eliz. 163: 'The Banketting House made at Whitehall for thentertaynement of the seide duke did drawe the charges ensving for the covering therof with canvasse: the decking therof with birche & ivie: and the ffretting, and garnishing therof, with fflowers, and compartementes, with pendentes & armes paynted & gilded for the purpose. The ffloore therof being all strewed with rose leaves pickt & sweetned with sweete waters &c.' The details include £9 14s. 4d. 'for flowers broughte into the Cockpitt at White hall with other necessaries, viz. fflowers of all sortes taken vp by comyssion & gathered in the feeldes', while William Hunnis, who was keeper of the gardens at Greenwich, as well as Master of the Chapel, provided 79 bushels of roses, with pinks, honeysuckles, and privet flowers.

[53] Holinshed, iii. 1315, from Harleian MS. 293, f. 217: 'A banketting house was begun at Westminster, on the south west side of hir maiesties palace of White hall, made in maner and forme of a long square, three hundred thirtie and two foot in measure about; thirtie principals made of great masts, being fortie foot in length a peece, standing vpright; betweene euerie one of these masts ten foot asunder and more. The walles of this house were closed with canuas, and painted all the outsides of the same most artificiallie with a worke called rustike, much like to stone. This house had two hundred ninetie and two lights of glasse. The sides within the same house was made with ten heights of degrees for people to stand upon: and in the top of this house was wrought most cunninglie upon canuas, works of iuie and hollie, with pendents made of wicker rods, and garnished with baie, rue, and all maner of strange flowers garnished with spangles of gold, as also beautified with hanging toseans made of hollie and iuie, with all maner of strange fruits, as pomegranats, orenges, pompions, cucumbers, grapes, carrets, with such other like, spangled with gold, and most richlie hanged. Betwixt these works of baies and iuie, were great spaces of canuas, which was most cunninglie painted, the clouds with starres, the sunne and sunne beames, with diuerse other cotes of sundrie sortes belonging to the queenes maiestie, most richlie garnished with gold. There were of all manner of persons working on this house, to the number of three hundred seuentie and fiue: two men had mischances, the one brake his leg, and so did the other. This house was made in three weekes and three daies, and was ended the eighteenth daie of Aprill; and cost one thousand seuen hundred fortie and foure pounds, nineteene shillings and od monie; as I was crediblie informed by the worshipfull maister Thomas Graue surueior vnto hir maiesties workes, who serued and gaue order for the same, as appeareth by record.' Stowe, Annales, 688, copies Holinshed; cf. Sp. P. iii. 91. Von Wedel (2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. ix. 236) saw the house in 1584, and was told that birds sang in the bushes overhead, while entertainments were in progress. A Record Office was constructed below the banqueting house in 1597 (Hatfield MSS. vii. 431).

[54] Camden, Annalium Apparatus, 6 (c. 12 Oct. 1607), 'Camera convivialis de novo construitur apud Whitehall'; Stowe, Annales, 688, 892, 910, 'the beautiful room at Whitehall'; Devon, 44, 302, 'James Acheson ... hath, by our direction, formed a model for the roof of our Banqueting-house at Whitehall'; V. P. xi. 86, 'At the close of the ceremony [mask of Jan. 1608] he said to me that he intended this function to consecrate the birth of the Great Hall which his predecessors had left him built merely in wood, but which he had converted into stone'. But James had been displeased with the building when he first saw it about 16 Sept. 1607 (S. P. D. xxviii. 51). Goodman, ii. 176, says that the City had to bear the cost in return for the transfer to them of Blackfriars, Whitefriars, and other liberties (cf. ch. xvii, s.v. Blackfriars).

[55] Chamberlain to Carleton (Birch, ii. 124): 'One of the greatest losses spoken of is the burning of all or most of the writings and papers belonging to the offices of the Signet, Privy Seal, and Council Chamber, which were under it'; cf. Reyher, 342; Goodman, ii. 175, 187.

[56] V. P. xii. 533; Stowe, 916; Birch, i. 229; Finett, 11; cf. p. 14.

[57] Stowe, 787, 789, 791; Von Wedel in 2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. ix. 256; P. P. Laffleur de Kermaingant, Mission de Jean de Thumery, i. 368, both describing the procession at length; Mission de Christophe de Harlay, 252, 'la coustume a tousjours esté, et mesmes du temps de la feue Royne de trés heureuse memoire, que les ambassadeurs residens en Angleterre sont priez d'accompagner les roys, lorsqu'ilz retournent en leur ville de Londres, après leur progrès'; Goodman, i. 164, 'The Queen's constant custom was a little before her coronation-day to come from Richmond to London, and to dine with my lord Admiral at Chelsea, and to set out from Chelsea at dark night, where the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen were to meet her'. Precepts by the Lord Mayor and other records of civic expenditure on the receptions are in Arber, i. 510; v. lxxvii; Kitto, 538; Young, Barber Surgeons, 108; Welch, Pewterers, ii. 33.

[58] Camden, 191, 'Anno iam regni Elizabethae duodecimo feliciter exacto, in quo aureum ut vocarunt diem creduli Pontificii sibi ex ariolorum predictione expectabant, boni omnes per Angliam laetanter triumphabant et xvii Novembris Anniversarium regni inchoati diem, gratiarum actionibus, concionibus per Ecclesias, votis multiplicatis, laetisona campanarum pulsatione, hastiludiis, et festiva quadam laetitia celebrare coeperunt, et in obsequiosi amoris testimonium, dum illa viveret, non destiterunt'; La Mothe, v. 204; Arber, i. 561, 566, 578; Sydney Papers, i. 371, 'the Triumphes of her Coronation'; Ellis, II. iii. 160, citing Pauls Cross Sermon of T. Holland on 17 Nov. 1599, published 1601, with a Defence of the Church of England for keeping Queen's Day, for the origin at Oxford under Vice-Chancellor Cooper, which is perhaps confirmed by the records of the tilt (cf. ch. iv). But the City churches rang their bells on the day before 1570; cf. Westminster, 18 (1568), 'ringing for the prosperous reign of the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth'; Kitto, 248, 'ringing for the quene the xvij of November 1569', 269 (1572), 'ringing at the quenes maᵗᶦᵉˢ chaunginge of her raign', &c. The Chamber Accounts for 1595-6 use the term 'Raigne day'. Goodman, i. 98, notes the Jacobean revival.

[59] Birch, Eliz. i. 92.

[60] Sp. P. iv. 494; cf. Kitto, 407: 'Pᵈ ye iijᵈ of November to yᵉ Parritoʳ for a warrant to kepe holy yᵉ xixᵗʰ day At wᶜʰ tyme heʳ maᵗᶦᵉ should a gone to Powles'. The ceremony, however, was deferred to 24 Nov. There was also a tilt on 19 Nov. in 1590. Von Wedel (2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. ix. 236, 256) says in 1584 that this was a regular day for tilting; but he also says it was the royal birthday, which was 7 Sept.

[61] I find no prolonged stay at Whitehall between May 1584 and Jan. 1589. If her presence in London was necessary during this period Elizabeth seems to have preferred St. James or Somerset House. She opened Parliament in Feb. 1586 from Lambeth; there were other visits to Lambeth and the Lord Admiral's house (Hance's) in Westminster.

[62] V. P. vii. 374 (6 Jan. 1566). Machyn, 273, records a visit to the court of a lord of misrule from the city in 1561.

[63] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 238. Nichols, Eliz. i. 108; ii. 65, 249; iii. 1, 445, prints rolls of gifts to and from the Queen for 1562, 1578, 1579, 1589, and 1600 from manuscripts in the British Museum and in private hands. A roll for 1585 is noticed in Arch. i. 11. Those for 1563, 1577, 1598, and 1603 appear to be among the Miscellaneous Rolls of Chancery in the R. O. (Scargill-Bird², 363), but are unprinted. Nichols also prints shorter lists of jewels given to the Queen for a number of years.

[64] Machyn, 195, 232, 257, 280, 305; V. P. vii. 74; Hawarde, 74, 109; Sydney Papers, ii. 44; cf. E. Ashmole, The Institution of the Order of the Garter (1672); N. H. Nicolas, Orders of Knighthood (1841); G. F. Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter (1841). Henri IV was installed by proxy in Apr. 1600, and the attendance of the Admiral's men perhaps implies a play (Hatfield MSS. x. 118, 269; Henslowe, i. 120). There are Garter allusions in Merry Wives of Windsor.

[65] Cf. Appendix A. The Chamber Accounts show an annual payment for a bonfire on Midsummer Day.

[66] Westminster, 19 (1579), &c., and Kitto, 364 (1584), &c., record the ringing of London bells. It can hardly have been a day for tilting (cf. p. 19) as the Court was usually in progress.

[67] V. P. xi. 57, 59, refers to an 'old custom' of keeping All Saints' Day in the city (i.e. Westminster) with the Knights of the Garter and the court; cf. Nichols, James, ii. 155. It can only have been a Jacobean custom, for Elizabeth did not as a rule reach Westminster by 1 Nov.

[68] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 124, 248. V. P. xii. 237, notes ringing on 5 Nov. 1611. Williams, Founders, 86, prints a guild order of 1611 for sermons at Paul's Cross and dinners on 'Coronation' day, 5 Aug. and 5 Nov., as days 'of meeting for the kings majesties sarves'.

[69] Cf. ch. iv.

[70] Camden, Annalium Apparatus, 2 (Aug. 1603), 'Indicitur ut hic dies festus celebretur ob Regem à Gowriorum conjuratione liberatum'; cf. Goodman, i. 3; Boderie, i. 283; V. P. xii. 26, 196, 409. The question as to the bona fides of the plot commemorated is discussed by A. Lang, James VI and the Gowrie Mystery (1902).

[71] Goodman, i. 247.

[72] S. P. D. xii. 13; V. P. x. 81, 90, 95, 195, 218; xi. 276; xii. 41, 381; Lodge, iii. 41, 108, 110, 141; Sully, 455, 458; Boderie, i. 310; Winwood, iii. 182.

[73] V. P. vii. 23, describes the ceremony in 1559, and Von Wedel, 2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. ix. 260, in 1584.

[74] Cf. ch. iv and App. A. In 1612 the Elector Palatine attended the banquet on Lord Mayor's Day; Henry's illness kept him away.

[75] Conspiracy of Byron, iv. 25. An undated letter from Elizabeth to Henri regrets that in spite of 'nostre sejour en deux lieux si proches l'un de l'autre ... nous sommes tous deux empeschez de passer la mer'; she adds, 'je me resoudray dans peu de jours de m'en retourner à Londres' (Sully, 364; Berger de Xivrey, Lettres missives de Henri IV, v. 464). This was doubtless written early in Sept. 1601 when Elizabeth was at Basing and Henri at Calais. Sully, followed by Strickland, 678, has an elaborate account of the business, including an interview between himself and Elizabeth at Dover, but the itinerary (cf. App. A) makes it impossible that she can have gone to Dover.

[76] V. P. viii. 496; cf. ch. v.

[77] Cf. ch. v for Harington's description of a drunken mask at Theobalds; there is confirmatory evidence in V. P. x. 386; Boderie, i. 241, 283, 297.

[78] Cf. ch. xiii, s.v. King's.

[79] Gilles de Noailles, Abbé de Lisle (1559), Michel de Seurre (1560-2), Paul de Foix (1562-6), Jacques Bochetel, Sieur de la Forest (1566-8), Bertrand de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (1568-75), Michel de Castelnau, Sieur de Mauvissière (1575-85), Guillaume de L'Aubespine, Baron de Chasteauneuf (1585-9), Le Sieur de Beauvoir (de La Nocte) (1589-98?), Le Sieur Thumery de Boissise (1598-1601), Christophe de Harlay, Comte de Beaumont (1601-5), Antoine Le Fèvre, Sieur de la Boderie (1606-11), Samuel Spifame, Sieur des Bisseaux (1611-15), Gaspard Dauvet, Sieur des Marets (1615-18). Complete lists of lieger and extraordinary ambassadors, with notes of the manuscripts containing their dispatches, are given by A. Baschet in Reports of Deputy Keeper of the Records, xxxvii, App. 1, 188; xxxix, App. 573; and C. H. Firth and S. C. Lomax, Notes on the Diplomatic Relations of England and France, 1603-88 (1906); cf. General Bibl. Note, s.v. Beaumont, Boissise, La Boderie, La Mothe.

[80] The Spanish ambassadors during 1558-84 were Don Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, Count of Féria (Jan. 1558-May 1559), Don Alvaro de la Quadra, Bishop of Aquila (May 1559-Aug. 1563), Don Diego Guzman de Silva (Jan. 1564-Sept. 1568), Don Guerau de Spes (Sept. 1568-Dec. 1571), Don Bernardino de Mendoza (March 1578-Jan. 1584); their dispatches are in Colección de Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España, lxxxvii, lxxxix-xcii, and are calendared, with those of Antonio de Guaras, a merchant who acted as agent 1573-7, in M. A. S. Hume, Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, preserved principally in the Archives of Simancas (1892-9, cited as Sp. P.). The ambassadors 1603-16 were Don Juan de Taxis, Count of Villa Mediana (Aug. 1603-July 1605), Don Juan Fernandez de Velasco, Duke of Frias and Constable of Castile, and Alessandro Rovida, Senator of Milan (extraordinary as commissioners, with John de Ligne, Prince of Brabançon and Count of Aremberg, Juan Richardot, Councillor of State, and Ludovic Verreyken, Audiencier, representing the Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella of Flanders, for the treaty of Aug. 1604), Don Pedro de Zuniga (July 1605-May 1610), Don Fernando de Giron (extraordinary, 1608-9), Don Alonzo de Velasco (May 1610-Aug. 1613), Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, afterwards Conde de Gondomar (Aug. 1613). Their dispatches are not in print, but a Relacion de la Jornada del Excᵐᵒ Condestable de Castilla is in the Colección de Documentos Inéditos, lxxi. 467.

[81] The Venetian ambassadors were Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli (Secretary, Feb.-Nov. 1603), Pietro Duodo (extraordinary, 1603), Nicolò Molin (Nov. 1603-Dec. 1605), Giorgio Giustinian (Dec. 1605-Oct. 1608), Marc' Antonio Correr (Oct. 1608-Apr. 1611), Francesco Contarini (extraordinary, 1610), Antonio Foscarini (Apr. 1611-Dec. 1615), Gregorio Barbarigo (Sept. 1615-May 1616). Reports of the state of England by Molin, Contarini, and Correr are in N. Barozzi e Guglielmo Berchet, Le Relazioni degli Stati Europei ... nel secolo decimosettimo, iv (1863). The current dispatches are calendared in Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs ... in Venice and ... Northern Italy (cited as V. P.). A report to the Senate by Zuanne Falier and others who visited England privately in 1575 states that they were advised by a Bolognese groom of the privy chamber, favoured by Elizabeth as an excellent musician [? Alfonso Ferrabosco], to suggest the desirability of an embassy (V. P. vii. 524). Retiring Venetian ambassadors were sometimes knighted and given a lion of England to quarter on their shields (V. P. xii. 163; xiv. 85).

[82] Sp. P. i. 382, 385, 403, 451, 545.

[83] S. P. D., Jac. I, vi. 21; xii. 16; Winwood, iii. 155; P. L. de Kermaingant, Mission de Christophe de Harlay, 173, 252; De la Boderie, Ambassades, i. 240, 262, 271, 277, 291, 353; iii. 1-192 passim; V. P. x. 139, 149, 212, 234, 388, 408; xi. 83, 86, 212. I have given some details in relation to the masks in ch. xxiii; cf. also ch. vi. There is a connected narrative of the Franco-Spanish disputes in M. Sullivan, Court Masques of James I, which perhaps lays insufficient stress on incidents occurring at state ceremonies and tilts as distinct from masks.

[84] 22 George III, c. 82.

[85] Stubbs, i. 382; Round, 68, 76, 82, 112, 140; Tout, 67. By Elizabeth's accession the High Stewardship and High Constableship had reverted to the Crown, and the offices were only temporarily conferred for occasions of state. The Great Chamberlainship was de iure in the same position, but was accepted under a misunderstanding as hereditary in the house of De Vere, Earls of Oxford. The Chief Butlership was hereditary in the house of Fitzalan, Earls of Arundel, and the Earl Marshalship in that of Howard, Dukes of Norfolk. It reverted on the attainder of Thomas 4th Duke in 1572. On 28 Dec. 1597 it was conferred on Robert Earl of Essex, and after his execution on 25 Feb. 1601 was placed in commission. These great offices, granted as hereditaments, are to be distinguished from serjeanties, or grants of land per servientiam to the holders of minor household posts, which thus became hereditary. Grants of serjeanties ceased early in the thirteenth century, and the only household duties exercised by their holders in the sixteenth century were formal ones on special occasions.

[86] The derivation is through the French from O. H. G. marascalh (marah, horse; scalh, servant). Round, 84, traces an early connexion of the marshal with the stable.

[87] A Squire of the Body held the office of Master of the Horse in 1480 (Nicolas, Wardrobe Accts. of Ed. IV). The term 'Master', generally applied to heads of offices in the outer ring of the Household, does not seem to be of very early origin. It probably replaces the fourteenth-century 'Serjeant'. Sir Thomas Cawarden got a 'Mastership' of the Revels in 1544, as he 'did mislyke to be tearmed a Seriaunt because of his better countenaunce of roome and place beinge of the kinges maiesties privye Chamber' (Tudor Revels, 2). The Mastership of the Horse was held by Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester (11 Jan. 1559-87), Robert Earl of Essex (23 Dec. 1587-25 Feb. 1601), Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester (deputy Dec. 1597; Master 21 Apr. 1601-2 Jan. 1616), Sir George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham (3 Jan. 1616). The appointment, like that of other 'Masters', but unlike that of the Chamberlain and Steward, was by patent and carried a fee of 1,000 marks (£666 13s. 4d.). Amongst the lesser Stable officers were the royal Footmen, whom we might expect to find in the Chamber.

[88] H. O. 19, 55.

[89] For the functions of Hall officers, as understood in the fifteenth century, cf. the 'courtesy' books, especially J. Russell's Boke of Nurture, the anonymous Boke of Kervynge and Boke of Curtesye (Furnivall, Babee's Book), and R. W. Chambers, A Fifteenth-Century Courtesy Book.

[90] The Treasurers of the Household were Sir Thomas Cheyne (1558-9), Sir Thomas Parry (1559-70), Sir Francis Knollys (1570-96), Roger Lord North (1596-1600), Sir William Knollys, afterwards Lord Knollys (1602-16); the Comptrollers, Sir Thomas Parry (1558-9), Sir Edward Rogers (1559-67), Sir James Croft (1570-90), Sir William Knollys (1596-1602), Sir Edward Wotton, afterwards Lord Wotton (1602-16); cf. D. N. B., passim (with some errors); Dasent, vii. 3, 43; V. P. vii. 1; Sp. P. ii. 227; Wright, i. 355; Sadleir Papers, ii. 368; Carew Correspondence (C.S.), 152.

[91] The Lords Steward were Henry Earl of Arundel (1558-64), William Earl of Pembroke (1567-70), Edward Earl of Lincoln (1581-4), Robert Earl of Leicester (1585-8), Henry Earl of Derby (1588-93), Charles Earl of Nottingham (1597-1615), Ludovick Duke of Lennox and afterwards Richmond (1615-24); cf. Dasent, xxviii. 60, 107; S. P. D. Eliz. clxxiii. 94; Stowe, 664; Sc. P. ix. 611; Sp. P. i. 18, 368, 631; ii. 239, 455; iv. 122; V. P. vii. 3; Hatfield MSS. i. 452; xi. 478; Sydney Papers, ii. 75, 77; Hawarde, 84; Camden (trans.), 124, 226, 373, and James, 14; La Mothe Fénelon, ii. 332; iv. 437; v. 60; Goodman, i. 178, 191; Cheyney, 28; Lords Journals, i. 543, 581; ii. 21, 62, 64, 116, 146, 169, 192, 227, &c.; Wright, Arthur Hall, 194-7.

[92] Larson, 132; J. H. Round, The Officers of Edward the Confessor in E. H. R. xix. 90.

[93] Hist. Mon. Abingdon, ii. 43.

[94] Constitutio Domus Regis in H. Hall, Red Book of Exchequer, iii. 807; Hearne, Liber Niger Scaccarii, i. 352: 'Magister Camerarius par est Dapifero in lib[er]acione ... Camerarius qui vice sua servit, ii solid. in die ... Camerarius Candelae, viiiᵈ in die ... Camerarii sine liberacione in domo comedent, si voluerint'; cf. Stubbs, i. 391; Poole, 96; Round, 62.

[95] Round, 112.

[96] Fleta, ii. 2: 'Auditis querimoniis iniuriarum in aula regia audire et terminare [Senescallum], assumptis sibi Camerario, hostiario, vel marescallo aulae militibus, vel aliquo illorum, si omnes interesse non possint'; ii. 6: 'Camerarius autem et subminister Camerarii a jurisdictione Senescalli et Marescalli exempti sunt, veluti omnes garderobarii ut in quibusdam; non enim extendit se iurisdictio Senescalli ad modica delicta Camerariorum vel garderobariorum audienda vel terminanda, eo quod ex consuetudine hospitii sunt exempti, dum tamen illi de quibus exigi contigerit curiae coram Senescallo Cameris Regis et Reginae, et garderobae assidue sunt intendentes; sed coram ipsis Thesaurario et Camerario audiantur querimoniae de huiusmodi ministris et subditis suis, et terminabuntur, praesente tamen clerico Regis ad placita aulae deputato; ita quod de finibus et amerciamentis ex huiusmodi placitis provenientibus nihil Regi depereat.'

[97] Flores Historiarum, iii. 194; cf. Fleta, ii. 16.

[98] Tout, 12, 68, 169. The 'Seneschal' and 'chambirleyne' are on the same footing as regards fees and allowances in the ordinances of 1318 (Tout, 270). They are knights, and may be bannerets.

[99] Fleta, ii. 6: 'Debet enim Camerarius decenter disponere pro lecto Regis, et ut Camerae tapetis et banqueriis ornentur, et quod ignes sufficienter fiant in caminis, et providere ne ullus defectus inveniatur quatenus officium suum contigerit'; ii. 7: 'Foeda autem Camerarii sunt haec, parata sibi debent esse quaecunque pro corpore suo sint necessaria; videlicet, cibus, potus, busca, et candela; et de caeteris foedis sic statuitur. Camerarii Domini Regis habeant de caetero ab Archiepiscopis, Episcopis, Abbatibus, Prioribus, et aliis personis Ecclesiasticis, Comitibus, Baronibus, et aliis integram Baroniam tenentibus, rationabilem finem, cum pro Baroniis suis homagium fecerint aut fidelitatem; et si partem teneant Baroniae, tunc rationabilem finem capiant secundum portionem ipsos contingentem.... Permissum est etiam quod Camerarius ex antiqua consuetudine habeat omnia vetera banqueria et tapetos, curtinas et lecta Regis, nec non et omnia ornamenta Camerae usitata et derelicta, et de omnibus exeniis Regi factis Cameram ingredientibus, dum tamen de victualibus aliquam portionem.'

[100] Nicolas, P. C. vi. ccxix.

[101] H. O. 31 (1478): 'A chamberlayn for the King in household, the grete officer sitting in the Kinges chambre.... He presenteth, chargeth, and dischargeth all suche persounes as be of the Kinges chaumbre, except all suche officers of household, as ministre for any vytayle for the Kinges mouthe, or for his chambre; for all those take theire charge at the grene cloth in the countynghouse. This is the chief hed of rulers in the Kinges chambre.... Item, he hath the punition of all them that are longing to the chaumber for any offence or outrage.... The Chaumberlayne taketh his othe and staffe of the King or of his counsayle; he shall at no tyme within this courte be covered in his service.... Within the Kinges gates, no man shall harborow or assigne but this chambyrlayn or ussher, or suche under hym of the King's chambre havyng theyr power. This chamberlayn besyly to serche and oversee the King's chambres, and the astate made therein, to be according, first for all the array longing to his proper royall person, for his proper beddes, for his proper boarde at meale tymes, for the diligent doyng in servyng thereof to his honour and pleasure; to assigne kervers, cupbearers, assewers, phisitians, almoners, knyghts, or other wurshypfull astate for the towell, and for the basyn squires of the body to be attendaunt'; 116 (1493): 'In the absence of the chamberlaine, the usher shall have the same power to command in like manner; alsoe, it is right necessarie for the chamberlaine and ushers to have ever in remembrance all the highe festival dayes in the yeare, and all other tymes, what is longing to their office, that they bee not to seeke when neede is; for they shall have many lookers-on. And such thinges as the ushers know not, lett them resort unto the chamberlaine, and aske his advice at all tymes therein; and soe the ushers bee excused, and the chamberlaine to see that hee reveale himselfe at all tymes, that hee may bee beloved and feared of all such as belong to the chamber.'

[102] Goodman, i. 178, speaking of Hunsdon's time: 'The lord chamberlain, there being at that time no lord steward, is the greatest governor in the King's house; he disposeth of all things above stairs, he hath a greater command of the King's guard than the captains hath, he makes all the chaplains, chooseth most of the King's servants, and all the pursuivants; there being then no dean of the King's chapel, he disposeth of all in the chapel.'

[103] Young, Mary Sidney, 16, gives from Sydney Papers, i. 271, and manuscripts several letters of 1574-8 from Lady Sidney to Lord Chamberlain Sussex about her accommodation at court. Heneage reported to Hatton on 2 Apr. 1585 (Nicolas, Hatton, 415) the Queen's anger with the Lord Chamberlain for allowing Raleigh to be put in Hatton's lodging. Lord Hunsdon apologizes to Sir Robert Cecil for his ill lodging in 1594 (Hatfield MSS. iv. 504).

[104] Cf. ch. iv.

[105] Cf. App. F. Secretary Walsingham in 1590 refers an applicant for an audience to the Lord Chamberlain, 'who otherwise will conceave, as he doth alreadie, that I seke to drawe those matters from him' (Hatfield MSS. iv. 3).

[106] Sp. P. ii. 606. The default was at the reception of Alençon's envoys in Aug. 1578. The Calendar makes Sussex 'Lord Steward', but the original (Documentos Inéditos, xci. 270) has 'gran Camarero'. In 1582, at the reception of a lord mayor, 'some young gentilman, being more bold than well mannered, did stand upon the carpett of the clothe of estate, and did allmost leane upon the queshions. Her Highnes found fault with my Lord Chamberlayn and Mʳ Vice-Chamberlayn, and with the Gentlemen Ushers, for suffering such disorders' (Fleetwood to Burghley in Wright, ii. 174).

[107] Cf. ch. vi, p. 205, on the misadventure of Jonson and Sir John Roe in 1603; also Jonson's Irish Mask (1613), 12, 'Ish it te fashion to beate te imbasheters here, and knoke 'hem o' te heads phit te phoit stick?', and Beaumont and Fletcher, Maid's Tragedy (c. 1611), 1. ii. 44, 'I cannot blame my lord Calianax for going away: would he were here! he would run raging amongst them, and break a dozen wiser heads than his own in the twinkling of an eye'. John Chamberlain says of Comptroller Sir Thomas Edmondes in 1617 (Birch, i. 385), 'They say he doth somewhat too much flourish and fence with his staves, whereof he hath broken two already, not at tilt, but stickling at the plays this Christmas', and Osborne, James, 75, of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, that 'he was intolerable choleric and offensive, and did not refrain, whilst he was Chamberlain, to break many wiser heads than his own [vide supra]: Mʳ. May that translated Lucan having felt the weight of his staff: which had not his office and the place, being the Banqueting-house, protected, I question whether he would ever have struck again'. This was in Feb. 1634 (Strafford Papers, i. 207).

[108] Machyn, 183, of Mary's funeral, 'All the offesers whent to the grayffe, and after brake ther stayffes, and cast them into the grayffe'; Gawdy, Letters, 128, of Elizabeth's, 'I saw all the whit staves broken uppon ther heades'.

[109] Lord Chamberlains Books, 811, ff. 178, 206, 236, contains warrants to the Wardrobe for the liveries of Lord Sussex, Lord Howard, and George Lord Hunsdon. The fee of £16 appears in a memorandum of 1606-7 (Nichols, James, ii. 125).

[110] The ordinary books of reference give a very inaccurate list of Elizabethan Chamberlains. I have collected the evidence in M. S. C. i. 31.

[111] Goodman, i. 178, says that Hunsdon was 'ever reputed a very honest man, but a very passionate man, a great swearer, and of little eminency'. Naunton (ed. Arber, 46) gives a similar account.

[112] Stowe, Annals, 936; Birch, James, i. 336; Wotton, Letters, ii. 40, 41.

[113] V. P. xiv. 65; Camden, James, 14.

[114] Birch, James, i. 382; Camden, James, 15; V. P. xiv. 100. Philip Herbert himself became Earl of Pembroke at his brother's death on 10 Apr. 1630. He took the parliamentary side in politics, and surrendered his staff on 23 July 1641. Robert Devereux, third Earl of Essex, although also a parliamentarian, succeeded him from 24 July 1641 to 12 Apr. 1642 (L. Ch. Records, v. 96).

[115] M. S. C. i. 34, 40. Howard of Effingham is described in the Revels Accounts (Feuillerat, Eliz. 238) as 'my L. Chamberlayne the L. Haward' on 5 Dec. 1574, and more precisely in the Chamber Order Book of Worcester as 'Lord Chamberlayn in the absence of the E. of Sussex' in Aug. 1575 (Nichols, Eliz. i. 533).

[116] Nicolas, P. C. vi. ccxxi; cf. p. 37.

[117] Dasent, vii. 3, 43; Wright, i. 355; La Mothe, v. 60; Sadleir Papers, ii. 368, 410; Sydney Papers, ii. 89, 198, 216; Chamberlain, 100; D. N. B.

[118] Hearne, Liber Niger Scaccarii, i. 352, 'Portator lecti Regis in domo comedet, & homini suo iii ob. & i summarium cum liberacione sua'; cf. H. O. 39, 42, 251. These Wardrobes were distinct, alike from the Great Wardrobe and from the standing Wardrobes, to which the furniture of the permanently equipped palaces was committed (H. O. 262).

[119] H. O. 39.

[120] Carlisle, 11, assigns the institution of the Gentlemen to Henry VII, but this is inconsistent with the official document of 1638 printed by him (112), which definitely refers it to Henry VIII. He also gives from Addl. MS. 5758, ff. 263ᵛ, 269ᵛ, a list described by him as of Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber at the time of the King's 'French expedition, in 1513'. But in the manuscript the list is simply headed 'The Kinges prevy chamber'; it is part of an enumeration of 'the King's Trayne to Bulloyne', is not dated 1513, and probably belongs to 1544. Similarly a list of Gentlemen, printed by Brewer, ii. 871, from Royal MS. 7, F. xiv. 100, and dated by him 1516, proves on scrutiny to be certainly later than 1520, and may therefore be later still, while a number of alleged grants to Gentlemen and Grooms of the Privy Chamber between 1510 and 1514 (Brewer, i. 148, 195, 205, 280, 364, 748) may be seen by comparison with other entries for some of the same personages (i. 11, 18, 91, 96, 113, 243, 410, 425, 448, 493, 600, 612) to be merely due to bad abstracting. Evidently Brewer, when working upon his first volume, had not distinguished between a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and a Gentleman Usher of the Chamber, or between a Groom of the Privy Chamber and a Groom of the Chamber. The first clear example of Grooms and Pages of the Privy Chamber which I have come across is in a military list of June 1513 (Brewer, i. 634). Here there are no Gentlemen, but in Sept. 1518 a parallel list of French and English names (Brewer, ii. 1357) has a section of Gentlemen of the Chamber, in which occur, besides French names, those of Sir E. Nevell, Arthur Poole, Nicolas Carewe, Francis Brian, Henry Norris, William Coffyn. I believe the categories of this list to be French rather than English. In 1520 (Brewer, iii. 244) a Chamber list gives the names of four squires for the body followed by 'William Cary in the Privy Chamber', and in the same year a list of quarterly wages due from the Treasurer of the Chamber (Brewer, iii. 408) has, besides four Grooms of the Privy Chamber at 50s. each, 'Henry Norris and William Caree of the privy chamber' at £8 6s. 8d. each. On the other hand, a list of Chamber officers of 1526, probably just before the Eltham Articles (Lord Steward's Misc. 299, f. 153), has still no Gentlemen, though it has Grooms of the Privy (here called 'King's') Chamber. As I read these facts, the distinction between the Outer and the Privy Chamber was made in Henry VII's reign or early in Henry VIII's. The Grooms were then divided into two classes. But the institution of the Gentlemen was later and apparently upon a French model. At first, about 1520, one or two Squires were personally assigned to attendance in the Privy Chamber. Then the arrangement was regulated, and a definite class of Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber established, by the Eltham Articles in 1526. As to status, the duties of the Gentlemen seem to have been in practice much those of the Squires of Household in the Liber Niger (1478), which were probably already exercised by Chaucer in the same capacity a century before. 'These Esquiers of houshold of old be accustumed, wynter and somer, in aftyrnoones and in eveninges, to drawe to lordes chambres within courte, there to kepe honest company aftyr theyre cunnynge, in talkyng of cronycles of kings and of other polycyes, or in pypeyng, or harpyng, syngyng, or other actes martialles, to help occupy the courte, and accompany straungers, tyll the tyme require of departing' (H. O. 46). Stowe (Annales, 565), describing the coronation of Anne Boleyn in 1533, calls the Gentlemen 'Esquires of Honour'. Their precedence under Elizabeth was after that of the Esquires of the Body (Carlisle, 86). On the other hand, some of the Gentlemen appointed in 1526 had been Knights of the Body, and the office of Knight of the Body appears shortly after to have become obsolete. Knights are included as chamber officers in the Elizabethan fee lists, but I can find no evidence that any were in fact appointed.

[121] The Grooms were distinguished from the Gentlemen in the post-Restoration court (Chamberlayne, 247) by not wearing sword, cloak, or hat in the Chamber.

[122] Constitutio Domus Regis (c. 1135) in Hearne, Liber Niger Scaccarii, i. 356, 'Hostiarius Camerae unaquaque die, quo Rex iter agit, iiijᵈ ad lectum Regis'; cf. H. O. 37, and p. 37, supra. On the etiquette of Bedchamber service, as inherited from the fifteenth century, cf. Furnivall, Babee's Book, 175, 313.

[123] The feminine posts do not appear in the fee lists. Lansd. MS. lix, f. 43, gives (c. 1588) two ladies at 50 marks (£33 6s. 8d.) and one at £20 as 'The Bed chamber', five at 50 marks as 'Gentlewomen of yᵉ privey Chamber', and four at £20 as 'Chamberers'. The term 'The Queen's Women' appears in the list of liveries for Elizabeth's funeral. Beyond these there were probably only a few women, e. g. a 'lawndrys', employed at court; cf. Cheyney, i. 18. In the New Year Gift lists the official women are mixed up with wives of men officers and others in attendance at court.

[124] Katharine Astley seems to have been First Lady in 1562 (Nichols, Eliz. i. 116), Katharine Howard, afterwards Lady Howard of Effingham, from 1572-87 (Sloane MS. 814; Nichols, i. 294; ii. 65, 251; Sp. P. ii. 661), and Dorothy Lady Stafford in 1587 (Sp. P. iv. 14). But Mary Ratcliffe had charge of the jewels from July 1587 to the end of Elizabeth's reign (Nichols, iii. 1, 445; Egerton Papers, 313; S. P. D. Jac. I, i. 79; Addl. MS. 5751, f. 222; Royal MS. Appendix, 68), apparently in succession to Blanche Parry.

[125] For the white dresses, cf. App. F; Sydney Papers, ii. 170; S. P. D. Eliz. cclxxxii. 48 (vol. iv, p. 114); L. Cust in Trans. Walpole Soc. iii. 12; for the lodging in the Coffer Chamber, doubtless where the 'sweet coffers' were kept, Sydney Papers, ii. 38. Elizabeth's predecessors, at least from the reign of Edward II (Tout, 280; cf. H. O. 44), had maintained some of the young lads who were royal wards at court under the name of Henchmen, but on 11 Dec. 1565 Francis Alen wrote to Lord Shrewsbury (Lodge, i. 438), 'Her Highness hath of late, whereat some do much marvel, dissolved the ancient office of the Henchmen'.

[126] This may be exemplified from the histories of Robert Dudley and Mrs. Cavendish, of Walter Raleigh and Elizabeth Throgmorton, of Robert Tyrwhitt and Bridget Manners, of Southampton and Elizabeth Vernon, of Essex and Elizabeth Brydges, Mary Howard, Elizabeth Russell and Elizabeth Southwell, and of Pembroke and Mary Fitton.

[127] Nichols, Eliz. ii. 24; Sp. P. i. 45; ii. 675.

[128] Philip Henslowe (ch. xi), George Bryan (ch. xv), and John Singer (ch. xv) were Grooms, and Anthony Munday (ch. xxii) and possibly Lawrence Dutton (ch. xv) Messengers of the Chamber.

[129] Cf. ch. iv. I doubt whether the Harbingers were originally Chamber officers, but they seem to be so classed under Henry VIII (H. O. 169) and in the Elizabethan fee lists.

[130] An order of 1493 'for all night' is in H. O. 109; Pegge, ii. 16, has a long account of the same usage in the post-Restoration Household. John Lyly (ch. xxiii) and Sir George Buck (ch. iii) were Esquires of the Body. A brawl in 1598 between the Earl of Southampton and Ambrose Willoughby, who was in charge of the Presence Chamber as Esquire of the Body after the Queen had gone to bed, is recorded in Sydney Papers, ii. 83.

[131] H. O. 33 (c. 1478), 'In the noble Edwardes [Ed. III] dayes worshipfull esquires did this servyce, but now thus for the more worthy'.

[132] At Elizabeth's funeral the Earl of Shrewsbury had a livery as Cupbearer and the Earl of Sussex as Carver.

[133] Cf. App. F.

[134] Philip Henslowe (ch. xi) became a Sewer of the Chamber.

[135] Brewer, ii. 871 (assigned to 1516, but probably later than 1526). The livery list for Elizabeth's coronation includes 7 Ladies of the Privy Chamber 'without wages' and 11 others 'extraordinary', 4 'ordinary' Esquires of the Body, and 6 Gentlemen Waiters (i. e. of the Privy Chamber) 'unplaced'; that for her funeral 16 Grooms of the Chamber 'in ordinarie' and 23 'extraordinary, but daily attendant', 5 Pages of the Chamber 'in ordinary' and 3 'extraordinary', and a number of Esquires of the Body and Sewers of the Chamber far in excess of anything contemplated by the fee lists.

[136] Batiffol, 93, describes a similar practice in the French household.

[137] Cf. ch. xiii (Queen's, King's).

[138] Philip Henslowe (ch. xi) seems to have passed from the 'extraordinary' to the 'ordinary' status as Groom of the Chamber.

[139] Pegge, v. 49. There were 'xx servientes, unusquisque jᵈ in die' in the Domus of Henry I (Hearne, Liber Niger Scaccarii, i. 356).

[140] Pegge, iii; Tout, 304 (1318): 'Item xxiiij archers a pee, garde corps le roi, qirrount deuaunt le roi en cheminant par pays'; H. O. 38 (1478).

[141] Sir Christopher Hatton was Captain of the Guard 1572-87, Sir Walter Raleigh 1587-1603, Sir Thomas Erskine, afterwards Viscount Fenton (1605) and Earl of Kelly (1619), 1603-32.

[142] Halle, i. 14; ii. 294; Pegge, ii. An Elizabethan book of orders for the Pensioners (1601) is in H. O. 276.

[143] Cf. App. F.

[144] On the development of the Secretaries, cf. Tout, 175; Davies, 228; Nicolas, P. C. vi, xcvii; Cheyney, i. 43; R. H. Gretton, The King's Government, 25; L. H. Dibben, Secretaries in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (E. H. R. xxv. 430).

[145] On the Chapel, cf. ch. xii, s.v.

[146] Payments on account of Robert Grene, a court fool, appear in the Privy Purse Accounts for 1559-69 (Nichols, i. 264). Apparently the post was hereditary; a warrant of 1567 for the clothes of 'Jack Grene our foole' is in Addl. MS. 35328. C. C. Stopes, Elizabeth's Fools and Dwarfs (Shakespeare's Environment, 269), adds from a Wardrobe book of 1577-1600 (Lord Chamb. Books, v. 36) 'Thomasina', a dwarf or muliercula, and from another (Lord Chamb. Books, v. 34) 'The Foole', 'William Shenton our Foole', 'Ipolyta the Tartarian', 'an Italian named Monarcho', 'a lytle Blackamore'. References to Monarcho, including L. L. L. IV. i. 101, are collected in Var. iv. 345, and McKerrow, Nashe, iv. 339. Dee, 7, records a visit from the Queen's dwarf 'Mʳˢ Thomasin' on 7 June 1580.

[147] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 50.

[148] Lafontaine, 45. Numerous records of the musical establishment are collected by Lafontaine from the Lord Chamberlain's Records, and by W. Nagel, Annalen der englischen Hofmusik (Beilage zu den Monatsheften für Musikgeschichte, Bd. 26), and more completely in the Musical Antiquary (Oct. 1909-Apr. 1913) from the T. C. Accounts. The fee lists are not to be relied upon.

[149] This was Mathias Mason. The lutenists also include Robert Hales (1586-1603), Henry Porter (1603), also described in the same year as a sackbut, and Philip Rosseter (1604-23), on whom cf. ch. xv.

[150] John Heywood was certainly a Sewer of the chamber to Henry VIII (cf. ch. xii, s.v. Paul's), and Edward VI had a group of singers holding these posts (Lafontaine, 9), but there is no definite evidence of a similar arrangement under Elizabeth. On Alfonso Ferrabosco, cf. ch. xiv (Italians).

[151] On the relation of the Lord Chamberlain to the Revels in particular, cf. ch. iii. The issues from the Great Wardrobe were mainly upon his warrants.

[152] H. O. 37. The post of Clerk of Works is also called an 'office outward' (H. O. 54).

[153] Cf. ch. iii, especially Tilney's list of 'standing offices' c. 1607. The 'maisters of the standing offices' also appear in the description of James's coronation (Nichols, James, i. 325).

[154] Thus the curious fee of £11 8s. 1½d. a year represents 7½d. a day, the regular wages of esquires, serjeants, and many clerks under Edward II (Tout, 270).

[155] The £100 was 'from the King's privy coffers' c. 1478 (H. O. 41), but by 1508 it was from the Exchequer (Henry, Hist. of Great Britain, xii. 454), and here it was still paid in the seventeenth century (Sullivan, 252, from Pells Order Books).

[156] Nichols, Eliz. ii. 47, from return of Board of Green Cloth (1576).

[157] Nichols, Eliz. ii. 45, 51. 'Bouche' or 'bouge' of court is clearly from busca, bush, firewood. The allowance was as old as 1290, for Fleta, ii. 7, notes cibus, potus, busca, and candela amongst the Chamberlain's fees (cf. p. 37). It is set out for each officer in 1318 (Tout, 270) and c. 1478 (H. O. 15).

[158] Nichols, Eliz. ii. 44.

[159] H. O. 34, 'because ray clothinge is not according for the king's knightes, therefore it was left'. But an order of June 1478 (T. R. Misc. 206, f. 11) required Lords, Knights, Squires of the Body, and others within the household to wear 'a colour of the kings livery about their nekkes'.

[160] Cheyney, i. 32; Devon, 24, 43, 67, 83; Abstract, 8; Pegge, iii. 27; Nichols, James, ii. 125; V. P. vii. 12; Hentzner, Itinerarium (quoted App. F); Addl. MS. 5750, f. 114; Lord Chamberlain's Records, v. 90, 91. The 'watchyng clothing' is as old as Edward IV (H. O. 38, 41). It seems to have been 4 yards of medley colour at 5s. a yard (Sullivan, 253). The sovereigns seem to have made some use of personal colours as distinct from the royal scarlet. Those of Edward VI were green and white (Von Raumer, ii. 71); those of Elizabeth black and white; cf. pp. 142, 161 (1559, 1560, 1564).

[161] Pegge, iii. 92.

[162] Cf. ch. xiii (Queen's).

[163] Cf. ch. iii.

[164] Carlisle, 90, with a list of many of James's Gentlemen.

[165] The order of 1526 for the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber prescribes that one of them, Henry Norris, 'shall be in the roome of Sir William Compton, not only giveing his attendance as groome of the Kings stoole, but also in his bed-chamber, and other privy places, as shall stand with his pleasure' (H. O. 156). Naturally the post had lapsed during female reigns, although a hope of Sir Robert Sidney for a 'Bedchamber lordship' in 1597 suggests that a renewal may have been contemplated (Hatfield MSS. vii. 225). James had had Gentlemen of the Bed Chamber in Scotland. Later court usage, represented already by Chamberlayne, 262, in 1669, interpreted 'stole' as 'vestment', but I suspect that in origin it was the close stool, which was kept c. 1478 by the Wardrobe of Beds (H. O. 40); cf. Marston, Fawn, 1. ii. 46, 'Thou art private with the duke; thou belongest to his close-stool'.

[166] Goodman, i. 389, says that the prime gentleman of the bed chamber and groom of the stole was 'a man of special trust' and had a table for guests 'employed in the king's most private occasions'. Viscount Fenton combined the post with that of Captain of the Guard under James. According to Newcastle, 213, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke laboured in vain to be of the Bed Chamber throughout the reign. Carey, Memoirs, 79, 91, describes the heart-burnings to which the office gave rise. Robert Carr, afterwards Earl of Somerset, began his career as a Page of the Bed Chamber (Nichols, James, i. 600).

[167] S. P. D. Jac. I (8 Nov. 1604). The French ambassador wrote in 1606 (Boderie, i. 56) that the king 'vit combattre les cocqs, qui est un plaisir qu'il prend deux fois la semaine'.

[168] Cf. D. N. B.. Anne also had a 'jester', Thomas Derry, in 1612 (Cunningham, xliii).

[169] Abstract, 46; Devon, 17, 72 and passim; Cott. MS. Vesp. C. xiv, f. 108; Addl. MS. 33378, f. 34ᵛ; V. P. x. 102; Sully, 443; Boderie, i. 39, 272, 362. Sir Lewis Lewknor received a formal appointment as Master of Ceremonies by patent, with a salary of £200, on 7 Nov. 1605, but had in fact been exercising the functions since 1603. Amongst his assistants were Sir William Button, who was employed by 1607 and obtained a reversion of the post on 10 Sept. 1612, and John Finett, who ultimately himself became Master, and published a record of his service from 1612 in his Philoxenis (1656).

[170] Worcester to Shrewsbury, 2 Feb. 1604 (Lodge, iii. 88); 'Now, having done with matters of state, I must a little touch the feminine commonwealth, that against your coming you be not altogether like an ignorant country fellow. First, you must know we have ladies of divers degrees of favour; some for the private chamber, some for the drawing chamber, some for the bed-chamber, and some for neither certain, and of this number is only my Lady Arabella and my wife. My Lady Bedford holdeth fast to the bed-chamber; my Lady Harford would fain, but her husband hath called her home. My Lady Derby the younger, the Lady Suffolk, Ritche, Nottingham, Susan, Walsingham, and, of late, the Lady Sothwell, for the drawing-chamber; all the rest for the private-chamber, when they are not shut out, for many times the doors are locked; but the plotting and malice amongst them is such, that I think envy hath tied an invisible snake about most of their necks to sting one another to death. For the present there are now five maids; Cary, Myddelmore, Woodhouse, Gargrave, Roper; the sixth is determined, but not come; God send them good fortune, for as yet they have no mother.'

[171] Madox, i. 262; Thomas, 24; Tout in E. H. R. xxiv. 496.

[172] Tout, 63.

[173] Madox, i. 267; P. R. O. Lists and Indexes, xi. 102; Tout in E. H. R. xxiv. 496. The following summary of the history of the wardrobe and chamber in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries is largely based on Tout, The Place of Edward II in English History (1914). Additional material has since been published in J. C. Davies, The Baronial Opposition to Edward II (1918).

[174] Fleta, ii. 6, quoted on p. 37.

[175] J. C. Davies, The First Journal of Edward II's Chamber (1915, E. H. R. xxx. 662), gives extracts from a Chamber account of 1322-3, including a payment of 7 Jan. 1323 'a iiij clers de Sneyth iuantz entreludies en la sale de Couwyk deuant le Roi et monsire Hugh [le Despenser] de doun le Roi par les mayns Harsik liuerant a eux les deniers xlˢ', which adds an interesting early use of the term 'interlude' to those given in Mediaeval Stage, ii. 181, 256.

[176] Newton, 351; Ramsay, Lancaster and York, i. 317; ii. 466. Henry VIII's Treasurers of the Chamber sometimes kept separate war accounts (Brewer, iv. 1. 82), and there is a similar example as late as 1599 (R. O. Audit Office, Various, 3, 108).

[177] P. R. O. Lists and Indexes, xxxv. 220, and Cal. Patent Rolls, both passim.

[178] C. P. R., 1 Hen. VI, p. 3, m. 5 (3 May 1423), 5 Edw. IV, p. 2, m. 28 (29 June 1465), 1 Rich. III, p. 5, m. 21 (26 Apr. 1484). I think Newton is wrong in regarding Vaughan's appointment by patent as exceptional. The Liber Niger, c. 1478 (H. O. 42), fully describes the Jewel House, with its 'architectour, called clerk of the King's, or keeper of the King's jewelles, or tresorer of the chambyr', and says 'all thinges of this office inward or outward, commyth and goyth by the knowledge of the Kyng, and his chamberlaynes recorde'.

[179] Sir Gilbert Talbot, Master of the Jewel House in 1680, represented (Archaeologia, xxii. 118) that anciently the Master was Treasurer of the Chamber, 'till that branch was taken out and made an office apart; and is now five times more beneficiall than the Jewell-House; all the regulation of expence being apply'd to the remaining parts of the perquisites of the Jewell-House, the fees of the Treasurer of the Chamber and Master of the Ceremonys being left entire'.

[180] Campbell, i. 228, 316; ii. 105, 296, 320, 445. Newton, 351, 353, thinks the exact dates of Edmund Chaderton's and Lovell's appointments uncertain, and supposes the keepership of the jewels to have been detached on the latter occasion. But it was clearly on the former, the date of which is given in C. P. R., 1 Rich. III, p. 5, m. 21, as 26 Apr. 1484. Lovell is described as Treasurer of the King's Chamber on 26 Feb. 1486 and of the Queen's Chamber about the following Easter (Campbell, i. 228, 316). There is no patent for him, and my impression is that both posts had been annexed to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, granted him on 12 Oct. 1485 (C. P. R., 1 Hen. VII, p. 1, m. 18).

[181] Newton, 354, with a full account of Heron's career.

[182] This arrangement had already been legalized by 1 Hen. VIII, c. 3 (Statutes, iii. 2), which authorizes the payment of certain revenues to Heron as General Receiver, 'and to other persons ... hereafter in like office to be deputed and assigned as in the time of the late ... King Henry the vijᵗʰ hath been used', but does not refer to him as Treasurer of the Chamber.

[183] 3 Hen. VIII, c. 23 (Statutes, iii. 45). It is provided by § 6 'that the Kinges forenamed trusty servant John Heron be from hensfurth Tresourer of the Kinges Chamber, and that he by the name of Tresourer of the Kinges Chambre be named accepted and called; and that he and every other persone whom the King hereaftur shall name and appoint to the said roome or office of Tresourer of his Chamber be not Charged ne chargeable for any suche his or their Receipt of any parte or parcell of the premisses as before ys expressed or therefor to accompte answere or make repayment to any persone or persones other then to the King or his heires in his or their Chamber, and not in the said Eschequier'. The Act only had force to 30 Nov. 1512, but it was continued by 4 Hen. VIII, c. 18, 6 Hen. VIII, c. 24, 7 Hen. VIII, c. 7, 14-15 Hen. VIII, c. 15, and made permanent by 27 Hen. VIII, c. 62 in 1535 (Statutes, iii. 68, 145, 182, 219, 631). The account of this legislation in Newton, 361, treats the Act of 6 Hen. VIII as its starting-point.

[184] His salary was at first £10, afterwards £25 a quarter (Brewer, iii. 407). He died on 10 June 1522 (Newton, 358).

[185] A letter in Brewer, iii. 781 (N.D. but dated by Brewer 2 Dec. 1521), speaks of 'Master Myclo the new treasurer in Master Heron is room'. Certain payments were made by John Myklowe, 'late treasurer of the King's chamber', from 1 June 1521 to 1 May 1522, and thereafter by Edmund Peckham (Brewer, iii. 1156), until 1 Jan. 1523. Conceivably Peckham, who had been a clerk in the counting-house, and was cofferer by 1524 (Brewer, iv. 422), may have been Treasurer for a short period between Miklowe and Wyatt, unless indeed these payments belong to a special war loan or subsidy account, such as Wyatt himself rendered in 1524 (Brewer, iv. 82), probably not strictly in his capacity as Treasurer of the Chamber. Miklowe is described as Treasurer on 10 Apr. 1522 and was dead by 28 June 1522 (Brewer, iii. 924, 998). For his earlier history, cf. Brewer, ii. 436; iii. 332; xxi. 2. 426; Ellis, iii. 3, 271.

[186] Wyatt is described as Treasurer in an indenture of 18 Feb. 1523 (Brewer, iii. 1190). In one of Cavendish's memoranda as printed in Trevelyan Papers, ii. 12, the name of Sir Thomas has been substituted for that of Sir Henry as a predecessor of Cavendish. This is an error, or more probably a forgery, as Collier edited the volume, and called special attention to the entry. Sir Thomas Wyatt was riding in 1524 on war loan business, payment for which is in his father's account (Brewer, iv. 85). On 21 Oct. 1524 he became clerk of the jewels. It is just possible that the old connexion of the Treasurer with the Jewel House suggested the confusion, on which cf. Simonds, Sir Thomas Wyatt, 19.

[187] H. O. 159.

[188] Brewer, iv. 1843.

[189] 33 Hen. VIII, c. 39 (Statutes, iii. 879).

[190] Brewer, xx. 2. 452; Dasent, i. 323, 470.

[191] Brewer, xxi. 1. 125, 147; Trevelyan Papers, i. 197.

[192] 7 Edw. VI, c. 2 (Statutes, iv. 1, 164).

[193] 1 Mary, Sess. 2, c. 10 (Statutes, iv. 1, 208); Thomas, 15.

[194] Wriothesley to Paget in Brewer, xx. 2. 338 (5 Nov. 1545). A later letter of 11 Nov. (Brewer, xx. 2. 365) refers to debts of the Surveyors' Court 'which is the Chamber'. In 1552 Charles Tuke was called on by the Privy Council to bring his father's accounts to the Lord Chamberlain for view and consideration (Dasent, iv. 164).

[195] Trevelyan Papers, ii. 1. The book is now in the R. O. It is in the statement of 1548 that Sir T. Wyatt's name has been inserted.

[196] Dasent, v. 329; vi. 182; Hatfield MSS. i. 256.

[197] Cf. ch. xiii (Interluders).

[198] Examples are in H. O. 120, 139, 147.

[199] Cf. App. B.

[200] A fuller account of the Tudor Chamber finance is given by Newton, 360; cf. M. D. George, The Origin of the Declared Account (E. H. R. xxxi. 41).

[201] Felton was cofferer in 1553 (Archaeologia, xii. 372).

[202] S. P. D. Mary, xiv. The fee of £240 represents the old fee of £100 attached to the Treasurership, together with allowances of £100 for board wages, £20 for clerks, £10 for boat-hire, and £10 for office necessaries, which Cavendish's accounts show that he enjoyed. The 1s. a day was presumably the fee for the Posts.

[203] Dasent, vii. 15, 27; S. P. D. Eliz. Addl. ix. 3.

[204] Nicholas, Eliz. i. 264, printed the accounts of Edmund Downing as executor to John Tamworth for 1559-69 from the audited copy in Harleian Rolls, A. A. 23. Copies are also in the Pipe Office Declared Accounts, 2791, and the Audit Office Declared Accounts, 2021, 1. No later Elizabethan Privy Purse Accounts are known, but it appears from the lists of New Year gifts for 1561, 1578, 1579, 1589, and 1600 (Nichols, Eliz. i. 108; ii. 65, 249; iii. 1, 445) that Henry Sackford succeeded John Tamworth as custodian of gifts given in cash, and he is described as Keeper at Elizabeth's death (S. P. D. Jac. I, vi. 2). His successor was Sir George Home, afterwards (1605) Earl of Dunbar (S. P. D. Docquet of 17 May 1603). Jacobean accounts for 1603-5 are in Pipe Office Declared Accounts, 2792, and in Audit Office Declared Accounts, 2021. Some extracts are in Cunningham, xviii. In 1617 (Abstract, 6) the Privy Purse disposed of £5,000 and an additional £1,100 from New Year gifts.

[205] This estimate is based on the account for 1594-5; doubtless there was some variation from year to year. A memorandum of c. 1596 (Hatfield MSS. vi. 571) gives the annual assignment to the office by warrant dormant as £13,800.

[206] On 23 July 1581 Heneage wrote to Hatton (Hatton, 181) that he could only grant allowances to couriers sent to Mr. Secretary in France if signed for by the Lord Treasurer, Lord Chamberlain, or Vice-Chamberlain. On 26 May 1590 (Cecil Papers, iv. 35) a royal warrant directed Heneage to pay on warrants subscribed by Burghley, as formerly by Walsingham. Both documents refer to temporary arrangements in the absence of a Secretary. When Herbert became Second Secretary in 1600, it was 'doubted that his warrants for money matters will be of no force to the Treasurer of the Chamber, which office depends upon the principal Secretary's warrants' (Sydney Papers, ii. 194).

[207] Camden (tr.), 130; Haynes-Murdin, ii. 761; S. P. D. Eliz. xl. 20.

[208] Wright, Eliz. i. 355; Hatton, 39; Heneage's accounts begin on 15 Feb. 1570.

[209] Camden (tr.), 450; Dasent, xxv. 4.

[210] Cecil Papers, iv. 68.

[211] D. N. B. from Lansd. MS. lxxix, No. 19.

[212] Sydney Papers, i. 356, 357, 363, 373, 382.

[213] Cecil Papers, v. 500; Haynes-Murdin, ii. 808. Killigrew rendered an account from 16 Dec. 1595 to 3 July 1596.

[214] Birch, Eliz. ii. 61; Haynes-Murdin, ii. 809.

[215] Birch, James, i. 277; S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxxi. 15.

[216] Lord Chamberlain's Records, v. 81-3. The recital runs: 'Whereas we have thought fitt to disburden our privy purse of certaine paymentes used of late to be made out of it, And to assigne the said paymentes to be henceforth made by you our Treasurer of our Chamber ... for allowances to players, for playes made before vs., for bullbayting, beare-bayting, and anie other sport shewed vnto vs.' The Treasurer is to pay 'vpon billes rated allowed and subscribed by our Chamberlaine'. Warrants for rewards for plays were still signed by the Privy Council during 1608-14, but by the Chamberlain from 1614.

[217] Abstract, 7, 12. During 1603-17 the Treasurer of the Chamber had also had £21,362 for 'extraordinary disbursements'.

[218] The development has been fully worked out by Professor Baldwin.

[219] H. O. 159 (1526).

[220] Cheyney, i. 67, 106; Hornemann, 52; Dasent, passim. Certain regulations called Orders in Star Chamber (cf. App. D, No. cxx) appear to proceed from the Council sitting in the Star Chamber, but in an administrative, not a judicial, capacity.

[221] Cf. generally for this paragraph Cheyney, i. 65; Hornemann, 19, 49; E. R. Adair, The Privy Council Registers (E. H. R. xxx. 698); and prefaces to Dasent, passim.

[222] La Mothe, iv. 29 (22 March 1571): 'J'y suys arrivé sur le poinct que ceux de son conseil venoient de débattre, devant elle, les poinctz du tretté.'

[223] Hornemann, 54, cites S. P. D. Eliz. cclxxviii. 55 as evidence that Essex was President of the Council; but surely it was the Council in Ireland. Scaramelli (V. P. ix. 567) reports an interview with the Council on 24 Apr. 1603, at which he says the Archbishop of Canterbury, President of the Council, was not present. This suggests that James had appointed a President. 'These Lords of the Council', adds Scaramelli, 'behave like so many kings.'

[224] Steele, xiv.

[225] Cf. App. D, Bibl. Note.

[226] Robert Laneham was Keeper and describes his functions (Laneham, 59): 'Noow, syr, if the Councell sit, I am at hand, wait at an inch, I warrant yoo. If any make babling, "peas!" (say I) "woot ye whear ye ar?" if I take a lystenar, or a priar in at the chinks or at the lokhole, I am by & by in the bones of him; but now they keep good order; they kno me well inough: If a be a freend, or such one az I lyke, I make him sit dooun by me on a foorm, or a cheast: let the rest walk, a God's name!'

[227] Baldwin, 439; Cheyney, i. 81; Dicey, 68, 94.

[228] Baldwin, 450; Percy, 17.

[229] Cheyney, i. 109; Percy, 48.

[230] Cf. ch. ix.

[231] Cf. chh. xiii (Pembroke's, Worcester's), xvi (Theatre, Globe), xvii (Blackfriars).

[232] Order for Sitting in the King's Great Chamber (H. O. 113): 'If the master of revells be there, he may sitt with the chapleyns or with the esquires or gentlemen ushers.'

[233] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 404.

[234] Cf. ch. xiii.

[235] Brewer, i. 24, 283, 690, 828; ii. 875, 1044, 1479; iii. 129; iv. 868; cf. Tudor Revels, 6.

[236] Machyn, 157.

[237] Brewer, vii. 560; Feuillerat, M. P. 22; cf. Tudor Revels, 7.

[238] Brewer, xiv. 1. 574; 2. 102, 159.

[239] Patent in Feuillerat, Eliz. 53. The appointment was retrospective from 16 March 1544. Cawarden had taken an inventory of Revels stuff for the King as far back as 10 Dec. 1542 (Feuillerat, M. P. 27). The historical memorandum of 1573 (cf. p. 82) printed in Tudor Revels, 2, says, 'After the deathe of Travers Seriaunt of the said office. Sir Thomas Carden knight, beinge of the kinges maiesties pryvie Chamber, beinge skilfull and delightinge in matters of devise, preferred to that office, did mislyke to be tearmed a Seriaunt because of his better countenaunce of roome and place beinge of the kinges maiesties privye Chamber. And so became he by patent the first master of the Revelles.'

[240] Patent in Feuillerat, Eliz. 70; cf. Feuillerat, Edw. and M. 4, 9.

[241] Tudor Revels, 2, from memorandum of 1573.

[242] Brewer, xx. I. 213; Feuillerat, M. P. 28; Edw. and M. 49; Patent to Lees in Feuillerat, Eliz. 56.

[243] Patent in Feuillerat, Eliz. 66.

[244] Patent in Feuillerat, Eliz. 68; cf. Edw. and M. 74, 180, 272. Blagrave is described as Cawarden's 'servant' in 1546-7, and again in Cawarden's will of 1559. He was aged about 50 on 27 June 1572 (M. S. C. ii. 52).

[245] Kempe, 93.

[246] Brewer, i. 636, 757; ii. 179; xvi. 603.

[247] Feuillerat, Edw. and M. 3; cf. ch. xvii (Blackfriars).

[248] Tudor Revels, 3, from memorandum of 1573. An account of Cawarden's life by T. Craib is in Surrey Arch. Colls. xxviii. 7 (1915). There is a doubt as to the exact date of his death. The i.p.m. gives 29 Aug.; his epitaph 25 Aug. Similarly the Blechingley register gives 29 Aug. for his funeral; Machyn, 208, gives 5 Sept.

[249] Patent in Rymer, xv. 565; Collier, i. 170, from privy seal; Feuillerat, Eliz. 54.

[250] Nichols, Eliz. i. 115, 280; Athenaeum (1903), i. 220; 3 Library, ix. 252; Collier, i. 185. A reference to the Master of 'Revels' in Hatfield MSS. i. 551 is a mistake for 'Rolls'. Benger was son of Robert Benger or Berenger of Marlborough (Harl. Soc. Visitations, lviii. 10), was knighted 2 Oct. 1553 (Machyn, 335), and was auditor to Elizabeth as princess (Hearne, John of Glastonbury, 519). Further personal notes are in Stopes, Hunnis, 104, 311.

[251] Collier, i. 171 (assigned in error to Cawarden); Feuillerat, Eliz. 110, from S. P. D. Eliz. vii. 50.

[252] Hist. MSS. vii. 615.

[253] Lady Derby writes to Sir Christopher Hatton in 1580 that she had been with her cousin Sackford (Master of the Tents) in 'his house at St. John's' (Nicolas, Hatton, 148).

[254] Printed by Feuillerat, Edw. and M. 180; Eliz. 18, 77.

[255] Sometimes garments no longer useful for masks, but not yet cast as fees, had been altered for players, and either kept in the office and 'often used by players', or given to the players or musicians 'by composicion' or 'for their fee'. Some were missing because 'the lordes that masked toke awey parte', or they had been 'gyven awaye by the maskers in the queenes presence'. Some were treated as fees, because 'to moche knowen'; in an earlier inventory of 1555 we find 'ffees because the King hath worin hit' (Feuillerat, Edw. and M. 299; Eliz. 24, 25, 27, 40.)

[256] Feuillerat, Eliz. 109, 119, 124, 125, 126. Possibly the amounts of imprests are in some years to be added.

[257] Feuillerat, Eliz. 130, 135.

[258] Patent in Feuillerat, 58.

[259] Patent in Feuillerat, 72.

[260] Feuillerat, 408, from S. P. D. Eliz. Add. xx. 101; Collier, i. 230, who thinks that the application was for the Mastership of the Revels.

[261] Feuillerat, Eliz. 409; Collier, i. 191; from Lansd. MS. 13; cf. ch. v.

[262] Feuillerat, Eliz. 429. He died in debt, and his will was not proved until 1577 (Chalmers, 482). This led me into thinking (Tudor Revels, 26) that during 1572-7 he was alive, but not actively exercising his functions, and possibly into some injustice in suggesting that he had 'in the end proved an extravagant and unbusinesslike Master'. Yet Blagrave's memorandum of 1573 (vide infra) seems to lay a special stress on the importance of appointing a Master who shall be 'neither gallant, prodigall, nedye, nor gredye'.

[263] Feuillerat, Eliz. 187, 456, correcting Collier, i. 198 and Tudor Revels, 26.

[264] Feuillerat, Eliz. 157, 160, 172, 178.

[265] Ibid. 186.

[266] Tudor Revels, 28; Feuillerat, Eliz. 416; from Lansd. MS. 83, f. 145, misdated in pencil 'July 1597'.

[267] Tudor Revels, 29; Feuillerat, Eliz. 412; from Lansd. MS. 83, f. 147. Dodmer was still pursuing a claim in the Court of Requests in May 1576 (Feuillerat, Eliz. 413).

[268] Text in full in Tudor Revels, 1, 31, and Feuillerat, Eliz. 5, from Lansd. MS. 83, f. 158.

[269] Feuillerat, Eliz. 432, points out that, as Elizabeth's Privy Council is referred to, these ordinances can hardly have been those of Cawarden (cf. p. 74) as I suggested in Tudor Revels, 34.

[270] Text in full in Tudor Revels, 42, and Feuillerat, Eliz. 17, from Lansd. MS. 83, f. 154. The time-references agree with 1573 or 1574, if Blagrave's unestablished service in the Revels began as early as 1546.

[271] Lansd. MS. 83, f. 149. The reference to two years' debts suggests a date, when compared with Dodmer's, in the summer of 1574; if so, the writer will be Fish, rather than Arnold.

[272] Feuillerat, Eliz. 164.

[273] A Declared Account for 14 Feb. 1578 to 14 Feb. 1579 is in Blagrave's name.

[274] Feuillerat, Eliz. 212, 218, 238, 247, 267, 277, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300.

[275] Ibid. 192, 266, 277, 297, 301.

[276] Ibid. 191.

[277] Patent in Feuillerat, Eliz. 73; cf. 191, Collier, i. 227, and Variorum, iii. 499.

[278] Feuillerat, Eliz. 197, 204, 212, 228, 247, 268, 277, 291, 300.

[279] Ibid. 182, 225.

[280] Ibid. 256, 321.

[281] Ibid. 162, 165.

[282] Ibid. 191.

[283] Ibid. 242.

[284] Ibid. 179, 186, 277, Table III.

[285] Ibid. 185.

[286] Ibid. 204, 219, 268.

[287] Ibid. 218.

[288] Ibid. 202; cf. Tudor Revels, 5.

[289] Hist. MSS. iv. 300.

[290] Feuillerat, Eliz. 227, 247, 277, 300, 310, 457.

[291] App. D, No. xxxiii.

[292] Feuillerat, Eliz. 55 (text of patent), 285, 302, 310, 312; Variorum, iii. 57; Chalmers, 482; Collier, i. 230, 235; Dramatic Records, 2.

[293] Digges, 359.

[294] Feuillerat, Eliz. 330.

[295] Ibid. 434.

[296] Ibid. 354, 358, 370, 381, 391.

[297] Ibid. 359.

[298] See text in App. D, No. lvi.

[299] Cf. ch. x.

[300] Cf. ch. i.

[301] Feuillerat, Eliz. Table II.

[302] Stowe, Annales, 689; Feuillerat, Eliz. 168; cf. ch. i.

[303] S. P. D. Eliz. ccxlviii, p. 512.

[304] Ibid, cclxii, p. 351. The calendar does not, however, note the marginalia to the docquet referred to below.

[305] Cf. p. 82.

[306] Tudor Revels, 64, and Feuillerat, 417, from Lansd. MS. 83, f. 170.

[307] S. P. D. Eliz. cclxvi, p. 5.

[308] Feuillerat, Edw. and M. 29; cf. p. 100.

[309] Feuillerat, 394, 417.

[310] Feuillerat, 352, 360, 367, 372, 379, 382.

[311] S. P. D. cclxxix. 86.

[312] Feuillerat, 108.

[313] Chalmers, 486, 490; S. P. D. Jac. I, lxv. 2. The fee lists (cf. p. 29) confirm this, sometimes adding 'diet in court'.

[314] Feuillerat, 108.

[315] Ibid. 310, 463.

[316] Hist. MSS. vii. 661; Feuillerat, 467.

[317] Feuillerat, 47. Owing to the omission of Burghley's title in the address of the report, I misdated it in Tudor Revels, 20. The history of St. John's is given by W. P. Griffith, An Architectural Notice of St. John's Priory, Clerkenwell (1 London and Middlesex Arch. Soc. Trans. iii. 157); A. W. Clapham, St. John of Jerusalem, Clerkenwell (St. Paul's Ecclesiological Soc. Trans. vii. 37). It was a Priory of the Knights Hospitallers, founded c. 1100, and enlarged in the fifteenth century. The Gatehouse, which still stands, was rebuilt by Prior Thomas Docwra in 1504. After the dissolution in 1540, the stones of the church were used for Somerset House, and the rest granted to Dudley. Mary resumed it and refounded the Priory. After the second dissolution by Elizabeth, the property remained in the hands of the Crown.

[318] Patent in Feuillerat, 60.

[319] Patent in Feuillerat, 63.

[320] Ibid. 74.

[321] Ibid. 360.

[322] Cf. ch. xii.

[323] Hatfield MSS. xi. 359, 379, 380. The 'Mr. Buck' implicated in the Essex rebellion of 1601 (Hist. MSS. xi. 4. 10) was Francis Buck (Hatfield MSS. xi. 214).

[324] Lord Chamberlain's Records, 554. Can he also have been a Gentleman of the Chapel? A Gentleman was sworn in 'in Mr. Buckes roome' on 2 July 1603, just after he became acting Master (Rimbault, 6).

[325] The letters are printed in full in Bond, Lyly, i. 64, 68, 70, 378, 392, 395. A contemporary note by Sir Stephen Powle to a copy of the 1601 appeal says, 'He was a suter to be Mr. of the Reuelles and tentes and Toyles, but eauer crossed'.

[326] Grosart, Harvey, ii. 211.

[327] Collier, i. 361.

[328] The conjecture of R. W. Bond (Lyly, i. 41) that Lyly was actually Clerk Comptroller is rendered untenable by our complete knowledge of the succession to that post; cf. Tudor Revels, 60, and Feuillerat, Lyly, 194, who shows that Lyly was the Queen's 'servant' as Esquire of the Body.

[329] Hatfield MSS. v. 189.

[330] Ibid. ix. 190.

[331] Patent Roll, 1 Jac. I, p. 24, m. 25; Text from seventeenth-century copy in Dramatic Records, 14; docquet, dated 21 June, in S. P. D. Jac. I, ii. p. 16. The terms, which follow those of earlier patents, are recited in the Declared Accounts of the Office from 1610-11 onwards.

[332] Patent Roll, 1 Jac. I, p. 24, m. 31. The date 1613 given by Chalmers, 491, is an error. An imperfect copy is in Dulwich MS. xviii. 5, f. 51 (Warner, 338). The docquet in S. P. D. Jac. I, ii. p. 16, is dated 21 June.

[333] Nichols, James, i. 215.

[334] He did not, however, get Tilney's fee of £100 (cf. p. 103) but only the original £10 (Abstract of 1617) or, according to some of the manuscript fee lists (Stowe MSS. 574, f. 16; 575, f. 22ᵛ), £20. Tilney's monument is in Streatham church (Lysons, Environs, i. 365) but does not give the exact date of his death.

[335] Cf. App. B.

[336] The pedigree in Middlesex Pedigrees (Harl. Soc. lxv), 83, dates his death in error 18 Jan. 1590, but it is interesting to note that his daughter Mary married William, brother of Thomas Lodge. He was buried at Clerkenwell.

[337] Patent in Dramatic Records, 9, dated 5 (? 15) June; docquet of 10 June in S. P. D. Jac. I, ii. p. 14; draft of 30 May in S. P. D. Eliz. Addl. ix. 58.

[338] Abstract, 60.

[339] Dramatic Records, 63; Accounts, passim.

[340] Accounts, passim. Feuillerat, 475, names Thomas Cornwallis as Groom Porter in 1603. But there was no such post at the Revels. Cornwallis was Groom Porter of the Chamber.

[341] Cunningham, 209, 217; Declared Accounts, passim; S. P. D. Jac. I, x. p. 178; xxxi. p. 410; lviii. p. 652; lxii. p. 17; lxviii. p. 110; Collier, i. 347, 363; Devon, 118.

[342] Abstract, 8.

[343] Cf. ch. vi.

[344] Henslowe took receipts for licensing fees from Michael Bloomson, John Carnab, Robert Hassard, William Hatto, Robert Johnson, William Playstowe, Thomas and William Stonnard, Richard Veale, and Thomas Whittle, 'men' of the Master of the Revels, between 1595 and 1602. Johnson was of Leatherhead, where Tilney had a house. I regret to say that on one occasion Henslowe thought fit to make a loan to William Stonnard (Greg, Henslowe, i. 3, 5, 12, 28, 39, 40, 46, 54, 72, 83, 85, 103, 109, 116, 117, 121, 129, 132, 148, 160, 161; Dulwich MSS. i. 37).

[345] Declared Account.

[346] Chamberlain, 120. A proposal (c. 1589) for the establishment of an 'Accademye for the studye of Antiquitye and Historye' (Anglia, xxxii. 261) contains a suggestion that its library might be housed in St. John's.

[347] S. P. D. (22. xi. 04); 1 London and Middlesex Arch. Soc. Trans. iii. 157.

[348] The gift to Aubigny is recited in the Treasury warrants of 10 Nov. 1610 and 31 March 1611 for lodging allowances cited below.

[349] Lansd. MS. 156, f. 368.

[350] S. P. D. Jac. I, xxviii, p. 391. The authority was given by a privy seal.

[351] Cf. ch. xvii.

[352] Cunningham, xxi, from Audit Office Enrolments, ii. 108. The authority is a Treasury warrant to auditors of 10 Nov. 1910.

[353] S. P. D. Jac. I, lxv. 2, contains (i) a letter of 1 July 1611 from Buck to Salisbury's secretary, Dudley Norton, asking for authority to be given by privy seal and not a mere letter to the auditors, and enclosing (ii) a letter to Salisbury, putting his case and pleading that Tilney had £35, 'besides £100 for a better recompense which had not been continued to Buck, (iii) a copy of a Treasury warrant to the auditors for the £30, dated 31 March 1611, and (iv) a draft of the privy seal asked for. Chalmers, 490, printed (ii) and (iii), and Cunningham printed a draft for (ii) from Harl. MS. 6850 in Sh. Soc. Papers, iv. 143. On 19 Dec. 1612 the Treasury sent a warrant to the auditors to allow the £50 (Cunningham, xxii). But Buck's preference for a privy seal was sound, for at a later date Auditor Beale complained that authority for the lodging allowances was wanting (Dramatic Records, 84; Herbert, 129).

[354] Chamber Accounts. Similar expenses for earlier years were charged in the Revels Accounts; cf. p. 89.

[355] There was yet another change later. Herbert said after the Restoration (Dramatic Records, 39; Herbert, 108) that the Office had been 'time out of minde' in the parish of St. Mary Bowe, in the ward of Cheap. St. Peter's Hill is divided between Queen Hithe and Castle Baynard wards.

[356] Chalmers, Apology, 531, 628, has an engraving from a block of the Revels Office seal or stamp, as used by Thomas Killigrew under Charles II. It has Killigrew's arms with the legend 'Sigill: Offic: Iocor: Mascar: Et Revell: Dni: Reg.'

[357] Cf. p. 98. The verses to the Britannia are headed 'Georgij Buc Equitis aurati Reg[iorum] Sp[ectaculorum] C[uratoris] Heptastichon'.

[358] This is sometimes ascribed to a younger Buck, but the manuscript copy in Cott. MS. Tiberius, E. x, is dated from the Revels Office on St. Peter's Hill in 1619.

[359] Feuillerat, Lyly, 237; Dramatic Records, 11, 39; Herbert, 7, 102; S. P. D. Jac. I (cxxxii, p. 432). Chalmers, 492, says, 'Yet, this was not old Ben, as it seemeth, who died in 1637, but young Ben, who died in 1635'. This seems rather improbable. Was Jonson already a suitor for the post in 1601, when Dekker wrote Satiromastix, iv. i. 244, 'Master Horace ... I have some cossens Garman at Court, shall beget you the reuersion of the Master of the Kings Reuels, or else be his Lord of Misrule now at Christmas'?

[360] S. P. D. Jac. I, cxxviii. 96.

[361] Murray, ii. 193, from Inner Temple MS. 515; cf. Collier, i. 402; Gildersleeve, 64.

[362] Herbert, 67, 109.

[363] Thomas Herbert to Robert Cecil, 26 Aug. 1601 (Hatfield MSS. xi. 362): 'Her Majesty, God be praised, liketh her journey, the air of this soil, and the pleasures and pastimes showed her in the way, marvellous well'; cf. p. 111 (1577). In March 1581, Thomas Scot reported to Leicester (S. P. D. cxlviii. 34) the scurrilous statement of one Henry Hawkins, 'that my Lord Robert hath had fyve children by the Queene, and she never goethe in progress but to be delivered'.

[364] Machyn, 262, 267, describes the start from and return to London in 1561. Puttenham, iii. 22 (ed. Arber, 266), has a story of Elizabeth's mirth at one Serjeant Bendlowes, 'when in a progresse time comming to salute the Queene in Huntingtonshire he said to her Cochman, stay thy cart good fellow, stay thy cart, that I may speake to the Queene'.

[365] Hunsdon to Cecil, 31 Aug. 1599 (S. P. D. cclxxii. 94): 'She ... will go more privately than is fitting for the time, or beseeming her estate; yet she will ride through Kingston in state, proportioning very unsuitably her lodging at Hampton Court unto it, making the Lady Scudamores lodging her presence chamber, Mrs. Ratcliffes her privy chamber.' James said of certain law courts, 'They be like houses in progress, where I have not, nor can have, such distinct rooms of state as I have here at Whitehall or at Hampton Court' (Bacon, Apophthegms, in Works, vii. 166). The distribution of rooms at Theobalds for a visit of 1572 is given in Hatfield MSS. xiii. 110.

[366] Dasent, vii. 238; viii. 401; x. 284, 286, 305.

[367] The Duchess of Suffolk wrote to Cecil in 1570 (Hatfield MSS. i. 481) to 'speak but one good word for me to the harbingers, in case my man shall not be able to entreat them to help me to some lodging near the court'. The harbingers, as in origin Hall officers, would provide for the Court generally; the Gentlemen Ushers of the Chamber for the Queen in person. A P. C. warrant of 29 June 1575 (Dasent, viii. 402) is for post-horses for Simon Boier, Gentleman Usher, 'being this progresse tyme appointed to prepare her Majesties lodginges' (cf. App. A, Bibl. Note).

[368] For references to the 'gestes', cf. 1 Ellis, ii. 274; Wright, ii. 16; Kempe, 266; Birch, Eliz. i. 87; Hunter, Hallamshire, 123. Copies of those for 1603 and 1605 are at the Heralds' College (Lodge, App. 97, 99, 108, 109). Those for 1605 are printed (from Harl. MS. 7044?) by Leland, Coll. ii. 626, and those for 1614, with the corporation's endorsement of receipt, from the Leicester archives by Nichols, James, iii. 10.

[369] A survey of houses for a progress in Herts is in S. P. D. CXXV. 46.

[370] Hatfield MSS. v. 19, 309; vii. 378.

[371] Kelly, Progresses, 302, 319, 345, 360; Nichols, James, iii. 11; Wright, ii. 16; Howard, 211. A 'Remembrance for the Progress' of 1575 (Pepys MS. 179) contains elaborate notes for routes (not those ultimately followed) and mileage, for the provision of vehicles, for instructions to sheriffs about corn and hay, and justices about flesh, fish, and fowl, for the carriage of wine from London, and the brewing of beer locally. If the country ale doesn't please the Queen, a London supply must be provided, or a brewer taken down.

[372] Kempe, 265. Wingfield's letter is only dated 2 Aug.; Lord Clinton, who is named, became Earl of Lincoln in May 1572. More preserved a letter of 5 Aug. 1567 from William Lord Howard to the Mayor of Guildford, asking for a close to graze his horses in during the Queen's visit to the town. On 24 Aug. 1576 a Mr. Horsman wrote to More (Nichols, ii. 7), 'Tis thought the Queen will not come to your house this summer'.

[373] 1 Ellis, ii. 265.

[374] Ibid. 266. In 1570 Bedford had written to urge on Cecil the unsuitability of Chenies for the Queen (Hatfield MSS. i. 477).

[375] 1 Ellis, ii. 267.

[376] Ibid. 271.

[377] Ibid. 272.

[378] Sussex Arch. Collections, v. 194.

[379] Nicolas, Hatton, 269. Lady Norris, to whom Elizabeth wrote affectionately as her 'crow', was the daughter of Lord Williams of Thame, who had befriended her as a prisoner at Woodstock; on the Rycote entertainment of 1592, cf. p. 125.

[380] Kelly, Progresses, 296. On 6 July 1576 Gilbert Talbot wrote to Lord Shrewsbury (Lodge, ii. 75): 'There hath been sundry determinations of her Majesty's progress this summer.... These two or three days it hath changed every five hours.'

[381] 1 Ellis, ii. 274.

[382] Sir Charles Danvers to the Earl of Southampton (Hatfield MSS. ix. 246). For other letters of courtly deprecation, which I have no room to quote, cf. Hatton, 223; Hatfield MSS. v. 19, 299, 309.

[383] Parker Correspondence, 148.

[384] Harington, ii. 16, 'She gave him very speciall thanks, with gratious and honorable tearms, and then looking on his wife; "and you (saith she) Madam I may not call you, and Mistris I am ashamed to call you, so I know not what to call you, but yet I do thanke you".'

[385] Lodge, ii. 119: 'This Rookwood is a Papist of kind newly crept out of his late wardship. Her majesty, by some means I know not, was lodged at his house, Ewston, far unmeet for her Highness, but fitter for the blackguard; nevertheless (the gentleman brought into her Majesty's presence by like device) her excellent Majesty gave to Rookwood ordinary thanks for his bad house, and her fair hand to kiss; after which it was braved at. But my Lord Chamberlain, nobly and gravely understanding that Rookwood was excommunicated for Papistry, called him before him; demanded of him how he durst presume to attempt her real presence, he, unfit to accompany any Christian person; forthwith said he was fitter for a pair of stocks; commanded him out of the Court, and yet to attend her Council's pleasure; and at Norwich he was committed. And, to decipher the gentleman to the full; a piece of plate being missed in the Court, and searched for in his hay house, in the hay rick such an image of our Lady was there found, as for greatness, for gayness, and workmanship, I did never see such a match; and, after a sort of country dances ended, in her Majesty's sight the idol was set behind the people, who avoided. She rather seemed a beast raised up on a sudden from hell by conjuring, than the picture for whom it had been so often and long abused. Her Majesty commanded it to the fire, which in her sight by the country folks was quickly done, to her content, and unspeakable joy of every one but some one or two who had sucked of the idol's poisoned milk.' Rookwood's committal and release are recorded in the P. C. Acts (Dasent, x. 310, 312, 342). He suffered at a later date as a recusant and died in gaol. His cousin, Ambrose Rookwood of Stanningfield, was a Guy Fawkes conspirator (D. N. B.; Dasent, xxv. 118, 203, 252, 371, 419; Copinger, Manors of Suffolk, i. 292).

[386] H. O. 145: 'It is often and in manner dayly seene, that as well in the kings owne houses, as in the places of other noblemen and gentlemen, where the kings Grace doth fortune to lye or come unto, not onely lockes of doores, tables, formes, cupboards, tressells, and other ymplements of household, be carryed, purloyned, and taken away, by such servants and others as be lodged in the same houses and places; but also such pleasures and commodities as they have about their houses, that is to say, deer, fish, orchards, hay, corne, grasse, pasture, and other store belonging to the same noblemen and gentlemen, or to others dwelling neere abouts, is by ravine taken, dispoiled, wasted and spent, without lycence or consent of the owner, or any money paid for the same, to the kings great dishonour, and the no little damage and displeasure of those to whose houses the Kings Highnesse doth fortune to repaire....'

[387] 1 Ellis, ii. 277, evidently misdated 'ann. 15' for 'ann. 16'.

[388] Kelly, Progresses, 325.

[389] The Cofferer's Account for the progress of 1561, printed in Nichols, Eliz. i. 92, from Cott. Vesp. C. xiv, shows expenditure while the court lay or dined at several private houses. On 24 July 1560 Sir N. Bacon wrote to Parker, 'The Queen's majesty meaneth on Monday next to dine at Lambeth; and although it shall be altogether of her provision, yet I thought it meet to make you privy thereto, lest, other men forgetting it, the thing should be too sudden' (Parker, 120). This was a dinner on a remove from Greenwich to Richmond, not during a progress; but the principle was probably the same. The older practice was certainly for the crown to pay. Puttenham, iii. 24 (ed. Arber, 301), records that Henry VII, 'if his chaunce had bene to lye at any of his subiects houses, or to passe moe meales then one, he that would take vpon him to defray the charge of his dyet, or of his officers and houshold, he would be maruelously offended with it, saying what priuate subiect dare vndertake a Princes charge, or looke into the secret of his expence?' And the discreet courtier adds, 'Her Maiestie hath bene knowne oftentimes to mislike the superfluous expence of her subiects bestowed vpon her in times of her progresses'.

[390] Cf. p. 17.

[391] 1 Ellis, ii. 265, from Lansd. MS. 16, f. 107.

[392] In 1576 the Board of Green Cloth paid £3 6s. 8d. by way of 'rewards given to inns in progress time where her majesty hath been' (Nichols, Eliz. ii. 48).

[393] Kelly, Progresses, 298, 320, 345, 359; Nichols, Eliz. i. 551.

[394] At Coventry in 1566 'The tanners pageant stood at St. Johns Church, the drapers pageant at the Cross, the smiths pageant at Little Park Street End, and the weavers pageant at Much Park Street' (H. Craig, Coventry Corpus Christi Plays, xxi, misdated 1567; cf. ibid. 106).

[395] Feuillerat, Eliz. 105, 109, 118, 130, 182, 225, shows that the Revels followed the progresses of 1559, when they furnished a banqueting house and mask at Horsley; of 1566, when their expenses came to £187 8s. 11½d.; of 1571, when the Master took nine men, three horses and a wagon; of 1573, when they spent £21 10s. 8d. on carriage and apparently the mask at Canterbury; and of 1574, when they furnished the Italian players at Windsor and Reading. A Green Cloth document of 1576 (Nichols, Eliz. ii. 50) also records the expenditure of £109 1s. 11d. by the Woodyard on 'necessaries, as plancks, boards, quarters, tressets, forms, and carpenters, hired in time of progresses'. Another of 1604 (Nichols, James, i. xi) is a record of wood felled to furnish the king's house with fuel during the recent progress.

[396] Ch. Ch. Accts. 1566 (Boas, 107), 'to the clerkes of the greene clothe for unburdeninge at our requeste the universitie & us of the lightes & rushes iij payre of gloves ... xviijˢ ... to the yeoman of the woodyarde for helpinge us to a recompence of our woode & cole spent ... xˢ'. Kelly, Progresses, 328, 'for the which you shall have satisfaction'.

[397] Kelly, Progresses, 361, prints the precept for the jury at Leicester in 1614. Jacobean proclamations (Procl. 950, 994, 1096, 1098, 1135), regulating the functions of the Clerk of the Market, claim that local prices, especially on progress, are often extortionate. Nichols, Eliz. iii. 252, prints a memorandum of Puckering's for Elizabeth's intended visit in 1594, which contemplates 'purveyed diet'.

[398] On the history of purveyance in general, the protests of Jacobean parliaments, and the attempts to persuade the shires to accept 'compositions', cf. Gardiner, i. 170, 299; ii. 113; Cheyney, i. 29; Bray in Archaeologia, viii. 329; Nichols, James, i. x; Kempe, 272; Procl. 1033. Nichols prints a table of c. 1604 showing the proportion of carts, 220 in all, charged on each of eight counties at removes from Richmond, Windsor, Hampton Court, Nonsuch, or Oatlands. The king paid 2d. a mile and required not more than twelve miles a day. A Green Cloth order of 1609 limits the charge on the bailiwick of Surrey (in Windsor Forest) to eight carts on a remove from Windsor or other houses in the bailiwick, or from Easthampstead, to Hampton Court, Oatlands, Richmond, or Farnham. The household officers were accused of blackmailing owners of carts to avoid impressment, and of requisitioning superfluous provisions and reselling them at a profit. In 1605 the Venetian ambassador reported (V. P. x. 267, 285) that James's servants were under less good control than Elizabeth's, and that the longer time now spent in the country and more frequent removes aggravated the burden of purveyance. The carts were wanted for harvest. Moreover, hunting destroyed the crops.

[399] Birch, Eliz. i. 12.

[400] Parker, xii.

[401] Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, 25.

[402] Thomas Tooke to John Hubbard (Goodman, ii. 20).

[403] Egerton Papers, 340. The second of the documents there printed is one of Collier's forgeries. On 27 April 1603 Sir Robert Cecil wrote to Egerton (Egerton Papers, 369) to borrow some plate, 'because of my self I am not able to furnish my house at Theobalds of all such necessarys as are convenient for his Maiestys reception without the helpe of my frends'.

[404] La Mothe, vi. 478. Gossip said that Leicester's magnificence was in return for an 'octroy de quelques vaquanz' worth 200,000 crowns.

[405] V. P. xii. 409.

[406] Northumberland to Cobham (S. P. D. cclxxxiv. 97).

[407] Wright, i. 370; Hawarde, 311.

[408] Nichols, i. 601, prints from Lansd. MS. 16, 'The Q. Prayer after a Progress, Aug. 15 [1574] being then at Bristow'. It contains a thanksgiving for 'preseruinge me in this longe and dangerus jorneye'.

[409] Kelly, Progresses, 301, from Harl. MS. 6996. The letter is undated, but as the court was going to Kenilworth, it may belong to 1575.

[410] Wright, ii. 16.

[411] 'I am old, and come now evil away with the inconveniences of progress. I followed her Majesty until my man returned and told me he could get neither fit lodging for me nor room for my horse,' writes Sir Henry Lee in 1591 (Hatfield MSS. iv. 136).

[412] Sydney Papers, ii. 210.

[413] Walsingham wrote to Shrewsbury from Oatlands on 2 Sept. 1584 (Lodge, ii. 245), that the Privy Council was divided 'by reason of a little by progress her Majesty hath made for her recreation'.

[414] Chamberlain, 166, 169, 'All is to entertain the time, and win her to stay here if may be'.... 'These feastings have had their effect to stay the Court here this Christmas, though most of the cariages were well onward on theire waye to Richmond.'

[415] Harington, i. 314: 'Her Highness hath done honour to my poor house by visiting me, and seemed much pleased at what we did to please her. My son made her a fair speech, to which she did give most gracious reply. The women did dance before her, whilst the cornets did salute from the gallery; and she did vouchsafe to eat two morsels of rich comfit cake, and drank a small cordial from a gold cup. She had a marvelous suit of velvet borne by four of her first women attendants in rich apparel; two ushers did go before, and at going up stairs she called for a staff, and was much wearied in walking about the house, and said she wished to come another day. Six drums and six trumpets waited in the court, and sounded at her approach and departure. My wife did bear herself in wondrous good liking, and was attired in a purple kyrtle, fringed with gold; and my self, in a rich band and collar of needle-work, and did wear a goodly stuff of the bravest cut and fashion, with an under body of silver and loops. The Queen was much in commendation of our appearances, and smiled at the ladies, who in their dances often came up to the stepp on which the seat was fixed to make their obeysance, and so fell back into their order again. The younger Markham did several gallant feats on a horse before the gate, leaping down and kissing his sword, then mounting swiftly on the saddle, and passed a lance with much skill. The day well nigh spent, the Queen went and tasted a small beverage that was set out in divers rooms where she might pass; and then in much order was attended to her palace, the cornets and trumpets sounding through the streets.'

[416] Lodge, iii. 38.

[417] Winwood, ii. 155.

[418] Many of the numbers in the song-books of the madrigalists and lutenists probably had their origin in entertainments. The Triumphs of Oriana (1601), for example, may have been written as a whole for a royal birthday or maying; cf. also examples in Fellowes, 121, 328, 434, 464, 485.

[419] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 154.

[420] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[421] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[422] M. N. D. 11. i. 148:

'Thou rememb'rest

Since once I sat upon a promontory.

And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back

Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,

That the rude sea grew civil at her song,

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,

To hear the sea-maid's music.'

On the chronology, cf. Sh. Homage, 154.

[423] On the débat, cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 79, 187; ii. 153, 201.

[424] V. P. x. 25. Leicester left the Queen by will in 1588 (Sydney Papers, i. 71) a 'Jewel with three great Emrodes with a fair large Table Diamond in the middest, without a foyle, and set about with many Diamonds without foyle, and a Roape of fayre white Pearl, to the number six Hundred, to hang the said Jewel at; which Pearl and Jewel was once purposed for her Majesty, against a Coming to Wansted'. Rowland Whyte says of the visit to Lord Keeper Puckering at Kew in 1595 (Sydney Papers, i. 376), 'Her Intertainment for that Meale was great and exceeding costly. At her first Lighting, she had a fine Fanne, with a Handle garnisht with Diamonds. When she was in the Midle Way, between the Garden Gate and the Howse, there came Running towards her, one with a Nosegay in his Hand, deliuered yt vnto her, with a short well pened speach; it had in yt a very rich Iewell, with many Pendants of vnfirld Diamonds, valewed at 400l at least. After Dinner, in her Privy Chamber, he gaue her a faire Paire of Virginals. In her Bed Chamber, presented her with a fine Gown and a Juppin, which Things were pleasing to her Highnes; and, to grace his Lordship the more, she, of her self, tooke from him a Salt, a Spoone, and a Forcke, of faire Agate'. Of the visit to the Earl of Nottingham in 1602, Chamberlain, 169, writes, 'The Lord Admiralls feasting the Quene had nothing extraordinarie, neither were his presents so precious as was expected; being only a whole suit of apparell, whereas it was thought he wold have bestowed his rich hangings of all the fights with the Spanish Armada in eightie-eight'. These hangings were bought by James at the Princess Elizabeth's wedding in 1613 (Abstract, 15; V. P. xii. 499) for £1,628, and were long preserved in the House of Lords.

[425] Cf. ch. vi, p. 172.

[426] Cf. p. 116.

[427] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[428] Nichols, ii. 673; V. P. xiii. 36; Hist. MSS. i. 107.

[429] There are four narratives: (a) MS. by Matthew Stokys, the University Registrary, printed by Nichols, Eliz. i. 151, and from a transcript in Harl. MS. 7037 (Baker MS. 10) and with a wrong ascription to N. Robinson, by Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, ii. 259; (b) Anon. in Camb. Univ. Library MS., Ff. v. 14, f. 87, printed by Nichols, i. 183; (c) Abraham Hartwell (of King's), Regina Literata (1565), reprinted by Nichols, Eliz.¹ (1788), i; (d) Nicholas Robinson (of Queen's), Commentarii Hexaemeri Rerum Cantabrigiae actarum, printed by Nichols, Eliz.¹ iii. 27. The ascription of Dido to Halliwell is due to Hatcher's biographies of King's men in Bodl. Rawl. MS. B. 274. Hartwell gives some analysis both of Dido and of Ezechias.

[430] I borrow from Boas, 383, De Silva's description to the Duchess of Parma as given in Froude's transcript (Addl. MS. 26056 A, f. 237) of the original in the Simanças archives. There is a translation in Sp. Papers, i. 375. Froude, vii. 205, paraphrases the story. After premising that during the Queen's visit 'they wished to give her another representation, which she refused in order to be no longer delayed', and that, 'those who were so anxious for her to hear it followed her to her first stopping-place, and so importuned her that at last she consented', De Silva continues, 'Entráron los representantes en habitos de algunos de los Obispos que estan presos; fué el primo el de Londres [Bonner] llevando en las manos un cordero como que le iba comiendo, y otros con otras devisas, y uno en figura de perro con una hostia en la boca. La Reyna se enojó tanto segun escriben que se entró á priesa en su camara diciendo malas palabras, y los que tenian las hachas, que era de noche, los dexáron á escuras, y assí cesó la inconsiderada y desvergonçada representaçion.' Of course, there is nothing about this in the academic narratives. It was an indecent proceeding, but in view of the character of the farsa or mummery which enlivened Elizabeth's first Christmas (cf. ch. v), the misunderstanding of her taste is perhaps explicable.

[431] There are five narratives: (a) Twyne MS. xvii, f. 160, in the University archives, by Thomas Neale, Professor of Hebrew, used by A. Wood, Hist. of Oxford, ii. 154, and Boas, 98; (b) Richard Stephens, A Brief Rehearsall, a summary of (a), printed by Nichols, Eliz.¹ i. 95, and C. Plummer, Elizabethan Oxford, 193; (c) Twyne MS. xxi. 792, by Miles Windsor of Corpus; (d) Nicholas Robinson (of Queens', Cambridge), Of the Actes done at Oxford, printed from Harl. MS. 7033, f. 142, by Nichols, i. 229, and Plummer, 173; (e) John Bereblock (of Exeter), Commentarii de Rebus Gestis Oxoniae, printed by T. Hearne (1729) and Nichols, Eliz.¹ i. 35, and from Bodl. Addl. MS. A. 63, by Plummer, 113, and translated by W. Y. Durand in M. L. A. xx. 502. Bereblock gives full analyses of the plays. Boas, 106, adds extracts from a Christ Church account of the expenditure.

[432] Bereblock (Plummer, 128) says, 'Hoc malum quamvis potuit communem laetitiam contaminare, nihilominus tamen eandem commaculare non potuit. Ad spectacula itaque omnes, alieno iam periculo cautiores, revertuntur'.

[433] Cf. Boas, 106, 390.

[434] Sp. Papers, i. 578; cf. Boas, 385.

[435] Sometimes the Chancellor brought distinguished foreign visitors, who were entertained with plays. In May 1569 Thomas Cooper, Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Christ Church, wrote to Leicester (Pepys MSS. 155), proposing 'a playe or shew of the destruction of Thebes, and the contention between Eteocles and Polynices for the governement therof', for a projected visit on 15 May by Odet de Coligny, Cardinal de Châtillon, and asking help 'for provision for some apparaile' (not 'apparaiti', as the Hist. MSS. report on the Pepys MSS. has it). It is not certain that the visit actually took place (Boas, 158). But in 1583 Leicester brought Albertus Alasco, Prince Palatine of Siradia in Poland, who saw the Rivales and Dido of William Gager (q.v.) on 11 and 12 June. The plays were given at Christ Church by men of that and other colleges, with the assistance of George Peele (Boas, 179, from Holinshed and academic archives). In Jan. 1585 Leicester came again, with Pembroke and Philip Sidney, and saw Gager's Meleager at Christ Church, and possibly also a comedy at Magdalen. Apparel was borrowed from John Lyly, who was then connected with the Blackfriars theatre (Boas, 192, from academic archives).

[436] There is only one narrative, by Philip Stringer (of St. John's, Cambridge), printed by Nichols, Eliz.¹, and Plummer, 245. Wood, Hist. of Oxford, ii. 248, follows an independent source. Boas, 252, makes some additions from academic archives, and cites from Twyne MS. xvii, f. 174, an order that 'the schollers which cannot be admitted to see the playes, doo not make any outcries or undecent noyses about the hall stayres or within the quadrangle of Christchurch, as usually they were wont to doo'. This was repeated at the visit of 1605. John Sanford's Apollinis et Musarum Eidyllia, reprinted by Plummer, 275, contains verses laudatory of the various guests.

[437] M. S. C. i. 198, from Lansd. MS. 71, f. 204.

[438] There are four narratives: (a) Anthony Nixon, The Oxford Triumph (1605, S. R. 19 Sept. 1605); (b) Isaac Wake, Rex Platonicus, sive Musae Regnantes (1607); (c) a Cambridge report, probably by Philip Stringer, printed from Harl. MS. 7044, by Leland, Coll. ii. 626, and Nichols, i. 530; (d) a letter from John Chamberlain in Winwood, ii. 140. F. S. Boas and W. W. Greg (M. S. C. i. 247) print schedules of the apparel and necessaries obtained from Kirkham and Kendall of the Queen's Revels, and from one Matthew Fox. They were partly for The Queen's Arcadia, partly, I think, for Ajax Flagellifer, and partly for Alba. Provision was made for a magician, and 'those scenes of the Magus', for which Robert Burton tells his brother (Nichols, iv. 1067) that he was thanked by Dr. King, Dean of Christ Church, were presumably in Alba. This is Stringer's name for the first play. Wake calls it Vertumnus, but it is clear from his analyses that it is distinct from Gwynne's, which he calls Annus Recurrens. Stringer's rather critical narrative contrasts with the self-complacency of the Oxford writers. He tells us how bored the King was and how the Queen and the ladies disliked the almost naked man in Alba.

[439] Goodwin's performance was made an excuse for securing the King's recommendation for his election as a Student of Christ Church (S. P. D. Addl. Jac. I, xxxvii. 66, 67, 70).

[440] Birch, i. 214; Winwood, iii. 441; Nichols, iv. 1087, from Hacket's Life of Williams.

[441] Birch, i. 303; Stowe, Annales (1631), 1023; Hardwicke Papers, i. 394; Truth Brought to Light, 64; Nichols, iii. 43. The names of the plays are given in a MS. penes Sir Edward Dering, printed by S. Pegge in Gent. Mag. (May 1756) and Hawkins, Ignoramus, xxx. I adopt the dates of this MS., which fit better into James's movements than the 12-15 March suggested by Chamberlain's letter in Birch, i. 303. The Vice-Chancellor ordered 'that noe Graduate of the Universitie under the degree of Master of Arts, or fellow-commoner, presume to come into the streets neare Trinity Colledge in the tymes the Comedyes are actinge; or after the Stage-Keepers be come forth; nor that any Schollar or Student, but those onely before excepted, by any meanes presume or attempte to come within the said Colledge or Hall to heare any of the said Comedyes'.

[442] Birch, i. 360, 361; Hawkins, Ignoramus, cxix, from a narrative by James Tabor, Registrary.

[443] Birch, i. 395, 397. Can the play have been Susenbrotus, for which there seems no room in the visit of 1615, although the MS. claims a performance before James and Charles at Trinity in '1615'?

[444] The term recalls the old use of the Camera as a treasury; cf. ch. ii. Similarly Bristol claimed to be the 'chamber' of a queen consort; cf. the patent to the Children of Bristol (ch. xii).

[445] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[446] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 172.

[447] V. P. x. 64, 67, 74; Birch, i. 8, 9. Chamberlain wrote to Carleton (10 July 1603), 'Our pageants are pretty forward, but most of them are such small timbered gentlemen that they cannot last long, and I doubt, if the plague cease not the sooner, they will rot and sink where they stand.' The double preparation must have cost the City something. There was a levy, amounting to £12 10s. on some of the guilds, in 1603, and in February 1604 another £400 had to be raised 'for the full performance and finishing of the pageants'. Towards this the Carpenters paid £2, but in all they had to pay an additional £8 3s. 4d. in 1604. There must have been protests, for the wardens of the Brewers were imprisoned for refusing to pay a levy of £50 (Jupp, The Carpenters, 68, 294; Young, The Barber-Surgeons, 110; Williams, The Founders, 222).

[448] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[449] Dekker sadly records that a great part of the speeches was left unspoken, lest they should be tedious to James.

[450] Machyn, 180.

[451] See ch. xxiv, s.v. Dekker, Coronation Entertainment. On 15 April 1605 the Spanish ambassador provoked a riot by 'joys and shews' to celebrate the birth of a Spanish prince (Lodge, iii. 147; Stowe, Annales, 862).

[452] V. P. x. 384; Nichols, iv. 1074.

[453] Clode, Early History of the Merchant Taylors, i. 276, gives many details from records of the company, including the item, 'To Mʳ. Hemmyngs for his direccion of his boy that made the speech to his Majesty 40s., and 5s. given to John Rise the speaker'.

[454] Cf. ch. xxiii. The entry of payments to Burbage and Rice, trumpeted as a discovery by C. W. Wallace in The Times for 28 March 1913, was in fact published by Halliwell-Phillipps in the Athenaeum for 19 May 1888; it is also in Stopes, Burbage, 108.

[455] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[456] Machyn, 191, 196, 201, 261, 273; cf. App. A (1559-1561).

[457] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 165, 382. Machyn, 287, records a watch with a 'castylle' at the Tower on 28 June 1562. There was another on 28 June 1564, which Elizabeth saw privately from Baynard's Castle (Sp. P. i. 366; cf. App. A). Puttenham, 165, speaks of 'these midsommer pageants in London, where to make the people wonder are set forth great and vglie Gyants marching as if they were aliue, and armed at all points, but within they are stuffed full of browne paper and tow, which the shrewd boys vnderpeering, do guilefully discouer and turne to a great derision'.

[458] Sharpe, Letter Book, L. 187, prints an order of 23 Oct. 1481 forbidding from thenceforth any 'disguysyng nor pageoun', when the Mayor went from his house to the water or the water to his house, 'as it hath been used nowe of late afore this time'. Halle, ii. 232, describes the reception of Anne Boleyn.

[459] Machyn, 47, 72, 96, 117, 155, 270, 294. In 1553 were a 'duyllyll' and 'ii grett wodyn, with ii grett clubes all in grene, and with skwybes bornyng'. For 1540, cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 166. A fragment of a Salters' pageant, printed by E. D. Adams in M. L. N. xxxii. 285, from T. C. C. MS. B. 15, 39, may belong to 1530 or 1542, when they had Mayors.

[460] Clode, ii. 262; Nicholl, Ironmongers, 84; cf. ch. xii (Westminster). The subject in 1566 is not recorded. Richard Baker, painter-stainer, had £18 for the pageant and everything except the children and their apparel; John Tailor 40s. to find six children 'as well for the speeches as songs'; James Pele 30s. 'for his devise and paynes in the paggent'; and Thomas Giles of Lombard Street (cf. chh. iii, v) £5 10s. for apparel. The company paid 5s. 'to the prynter for printing of poses speches and songs, that were spoken and songe by the children in the pagent'.

[461] Clode, Memorials, 115; Nicholl, Ironmongers, 97, 'Paid unto James Pele and Peter Baker, for the devise of a pageant, which tok none effecte, xxvjˢ. viijᵈ.'

[462] W. Smythe, A breffe description of London (1575); cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 165. Dramatic allusions are 2 Promos and Cassandra, i. 6, '[Enter] Two men, apparrelled lyke greene men at the Mayor feast, with clubbes of fyreworke'; Cobbler's Prophecy, 469, 'comes there a Pageant by, Ile stand out of the green mens way for burning my vestment'; Dutch Courtesan, iii. 1, 117, 'all will scarce make me so high as one of the giants' stilts that stalks before my Lord Mayor's pageant'; Northward Hoe, ii. 1, p. 195, 'Simon and Jude's gentlemen ushers'.

[463] 2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. ix. 252, 'a representation in the shape of a house with a pointed roof painted in blue and golden colours and ornamented with garlands, on which sat some young girls in fine apparel, one holding a book, another a pair of scales, the third a sceptre. What the others had I forget.' He gives full details of all the installation ceremonies.

[464] Chamberlain, 93.

[465] Clode, Early History, i. 264, 390, cites payments for a ship, a pageant, a lion, and a camel, and to Mr. Haines, schoolmaster of the Merchant Taylors school, for a wagon and the apparel of ten scholars, who represented Apollo and the Muses before the Mayor in Cheapside. Young, Barber-Surgeons, 111, prints the Lord Mayor's letter of 22 Oct. 1603 directing that there should be no show that year. Felix Kingston entered 'a thing touching the pagent' in S. R. on 29 Oct. 1604 (Arber, iii. 273).

[466] Machyn, 261, 309.

[467] Stowe, Annales (1615), 887.

[468] Cf. ch. xxiii.

[469] John Taylor, Heaven's Blessing and Earth's Joy (Nichols, ii. 527). The use of fireworks at Kenilworth in 1575 and Elvetham in 1591, with a miniature sea-fight at the latter, has already been noted. An undated device for three days' fireworks by an Italian before the Queen, 'in the meadow', 'in the courtyard of the Palace', 'in the river' (Pepys MSS. 178) may belong to 1575, or possibly to the Warwick visit of 1572, at which a firework assault upon a fort in the meadow below the castle is recorded by La Mothe, v. 96.

[470] M. S. C. i. 89.

[471] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[472] Nichols, Eliz. ii. 529, from a MS. in private hands.

[473] Halle, i. 22, 189; Cripps-Day, 118 (misdated 1510). The illuminated roll of 1511 is engraved in Vetusta Monumenta, i, pll. xxi-xxvi. Some interesting documents on early Tudor tilting are given in Cripps-Day, xliii, from Harl. MS. 69 (The Book of Certaine Triumphes).

[474] The rules are extant in Heralds' College MSS. I. 26, M. 6; Harl. MSS. 69, 1354, 1776, 2358, 2413, 6064; Bodl. Ashm. MS. 763; versions are printed in Vetusta Monumenta, i; Grose and Astle, Antiquarian Repertory, i. 144; Meyrick, Antient Armor, ii. 179; Harington, i. 1; Cripps-Day, xxvii. Viscount Dillon prints (Arch. lvii. 29) an illuminated fifteenth-century collection of ordinances of chivalry which belonged to Prince Henry.

[475] Dillon, An Elizabethan Armourer's Album (Arch. Journal, lii. 113), Tilting in Tudor Times (A. J. lv. 296), Barriers and Foot-Combats (A. J. lxi. 276), Armour and Arms in Shakespeare (A. J. lxv. 270); C. ffoulkes. Jousting Cheques of the Sixteenth Century (Archaeologia, lxiii. 31), W. Segar, Honor, Military and Ciuill (1602), iii. 54, records a number of Elizabethan jousts, or, as he calls them, 'triumphs'. Dillon (A. J. lv. 303) reproduces drawings of a tilt, tourney, and barriers by William Smith (c. 1597).

[476] W. L. Spiers in L. T. R. vii. 62; Machyn, 269.

[477] E. Law, Hampton Court, i. 135, 206.

[478] Segar (Nichols, ii. 335) describes a tourney, presumably a foot-tourney, at Whitehall by night before the French ambassador, François de Montmorency, in June 1572, with the yeomen of the guard holding 'an infinite number of torches on the terrace and in the preaching place'.

[479] The play of Paris and Vienna on 19 Feb. 1572 included a triumph with hobby-horses 'where Paris wan the christall sheelde for Vienna at the turneye and barryers' (Feuillerat, 141). A barriers was also fought by Amazons and Knights in a mask of 11 Jan. 1579 (Feuillerat, 287).

[480] Cf. App. A.

[481] Cf. ch. xxiv. The date at which the annual tilt began is not clear. It cannot be earlier than the institution of Queen's Day itself (1570? cf. p. 18), but as that is said to have originated at Oxford, hard by Woodstock, the two may have come into existence together. Segar, who compares Lee's enterprise to 'the Knighthood della Banda in Spaine' assigns it to the beginning of the reign. On the other hand, I have not found any actual evidence for a tilt on 17 Nov. before 1581, although there is plenty afterwards. The references to the matter on Lee's tombstone and in the fragments of the Ferrers MS. do not help, unless fragment (iv) belongs to the Woodstock entertainment of 1575, in which case the vow 'not far from hence' must be before that date. Is it possible that the tilting at first took place at Oxford or Woodstock itself and was transferred to Whitehall about 1581? In 1593, perhaps owing to the plague, it was held at Windsor.

[482] Leland, Collectanea, ii. 666.

[483] Thus at a joust of 1494 (Kingsford, Chronicle, 201), 'iiij fayre ladyes ... ladde their Bridellis with iiij silkyn laces of white and blewe'. After a joust in May 1571, ladies led the armed victors to receive their prizes in the presence chamber (Nichols, ii. 334, from Segar).

[484] Cf. p. 52. Hunsdon and Dudley, as challengers, wore black and white in 1559; in 1560 the heralds were in black and white (Machyn, 216, 231).

[485] A galley on the waterside at Whitehall is described as hung with these shields by Von Wedel (2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. ix. 236) in 1584 and by Hentzner in 1598, 'emblemata varia papyracea, clypei formam habentia, quibus, adiectis symbolis, nobiles in exercitiis equestribus & gladiatoriis uti sunt soliti, hic memoriae caussa suspensa', and Manningham, 3, describes 'certayne devises and empresaes taken by the scucheons in the Gallery at Whitehall' in 1602. The Shield Gallery was still extant in the time of Pepys. Aubrey, Wilts. 88, says that a similar collection of shields at Wilton were 'of pastboard painted with their devices and emblems, which was very pretty and ingenious'. Of course, these were not used in the actual encounter. On imprese, cf. F. Brie, Shakespeare und die Impresa-Kunst seiner Zeit (1914, Sh.-Jahrbuch, l. 9); G. F. Barwick, Impresas (2 Library, vii. 140); Lee, Shakespeare, 455. A contemporary treatise is Paolo Giovio, Dialogo dell' Imprese Militari et Amorose (1555). Good examples are afforded by Pericles, II. ii.

[486] Von Wedel (loc. cit. 258) describes the accession tilt of 1584: 'About twelve o'clock the queen with her ladies placed themselves at the windows in a long room of Whitehall palace, near Westminster, opposite the barrier where the tournament was to be held. From this room a broad staircase led downwards, and round the barrier stands were arranged by boards above the ground, so that everybody by paying 12d. could get a stand and see the play.... During the whole time of the tournament all who wished to fight entered the lists by pairs, the trumpets being blown at the time and other musical instruments. The combatants had their servants clad in different colours; they, however, did not enter the barrier, but arranged themselves on both sides. Some of the servants were disguised like savages, or like Irishmen, with the hair hanging down to the girdle like women, others had horse manes on their heads, some came driving in a carriage, the horses being equipped like elephants, some carriages were drawn by men, others appeared to move by themselves; altogether the carriages were of very odd appearance. Some gentlemen had their horses with them and mounted in full armour directly from the carriage.... When a gentleman with his servant approached the barrier, on horseback or in a carriage, he stopped at the foot of the staircase leading to the queen's room, while one of his servants in pompous attire of a special pattern mounted the steps and addressed the queen in well-composed verses or with a ludicrous speech, making her and her ladies laugh. When the speech was ended he in the name of his lord offered to the queen a costly present, which was accepted and permission given to take part in the tournament.'

[487] Nichols, ii. 335, from Segar.

[488] Lodge, ii. 146.

[489] Nichols, ii. 334, from Segar; M. S. C. i. 181, from Lansd. MS. 99, f. 259.

[490] Von Raumer, ii. 431, from a letter of M. Nellot of the French Embassy in Dupuy MS. xxxiii. I do not feel sure that the writer is really describing a distinct joust from that of Whitehall, although he certainly locates it at Hampton Court, and the French commissioners certainly visited Hampton Court, with Leicester and Pembroke, on 6 May (Walsingham's Journal). He gives Arundel and Windsor as challengers, and the two 'Irish youths' might be Perrot and Cooke. Tilney only charged in the Revels Account (Feuillerat, 341) for one challenge and two days' triumph.

[491] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[492] Gawdy, 25, sent his father 'ij small bookes for a token, the one of them was gyven me that day that they rann at tilt, divers of them being gyven to most of the lordes, and gentlemen about the court, and one especially to the Quene'. On 18 Nov. 1595, John Danter entered in S. R. (Arber, iii. 53) 'a new ballad of the honorable order of the Runnynge at Tilt at Whitehall the 17 of November in the 38 year of her Maiesties reign', but it does not appear to be extant.

[493] Cf. ch. xxiii (s.v. Lee).

[494] Gawdy, 67 (n.d. but ascribed by ed. to 1592), 'Uppon the coronation day at nyght ther cam two knightes armed vpp into the pryvy chamber videlicet my L. of Essex and my L. of Cumberland and ther made a challenge that vppon the xxvjth of ffebruary next that they will runn with all commers to mayntayn that ther M. is most worthiest and most fayrest Amadis de Gaule'.

[495] R. Carey, Memoirs, 32.

[496] Cf. ch. xxiii (s.v. Bacon).

[497] Chamberlain, 29, 163; Winwood, i. 271, 274.

[498] Hatfield MSS. xi. 462, 540, 544.

[499] Winwood, ii. 54.

[500] Boderie, ii. 144.

[501] Birch, i. 92.

[502] Rowland Whyte (Lodge, iii. 162) writing of a 'great tilt' in which Montgomery was to take part on 20 May 1605, adds the lines—

The Herberts every cockpit day.

Do carry away

The gold and glory of the day.

The Westminster tilt-yard was, of course, close to the Cockpit.

[503] A. Wilson (Compleat Hist. ii. 686).

[504] Cf. ch. xxiii (s.v. Jonson, Hymenaei).

[505] W. Drummond of Hawthornden, Works (1711), 231; Boderie, i. 58, 105, 136, 173, 185, 260. The challenge of the Knights Errants, who were the Earls of Lennox, Arundel, Pembroke, and Montgomery, is sent by Drummond to a correspondent, with a reply in the same vein, but there is nothing to suggest that he was the author. Ford's (q.v.) Honour Triumphant (1606) is addressed to the four Earls.

[506] There are several extant portraits of Henry in tilting armour; one is engraved in Drayton's Polyolbion (1613). Dillon (A. J. lii. 125; lx. 132) notes that he had five suits of tilting-armour. One, given him by Lee, cost £200. Another, given by Prince de Joinville, is in the Tower. A third, at Windsor, was made by William Pickering at Greenwich, apparently on one of the designs by Jacobe now at South Kensington. As early as 18 Aug. 1604, when he was ten years old, the Constable of Castile saw Henry at pike and horse exercise, and gave him a pony (V. P. x. 178).

[507] Cf. ch. xxiii (s.v. Jonson, Prince Henry's Barriers).

[508] Nichols, ii. 361.

[509] Clephan, 133, 176, from Harl. MSS. 4888, art. 20; cf. App. A.

[510] Rutland MSS. iv. 494, 'Item 31 Martii to Mʳ. Shakspeare in gold about my Lords impreso xliiijˢ. To Richard Burbadge for paynting and making yᵗ in gold xliiijˢ'. Wotton, ii. 17, mentions the 'bare imprese, whereof some were so dark that their meaning is not yet understood, unless perchance that were their meaning, not to be understood'.

[511] Nichols, ii. 549.

[512] Rutland MSS. iv. 508, 'Paid given Richard Burbidg for my lordes shield and for the embleance, 4ˡ. 18ˢ'.

[513] Mediaeval Stage, i. 390.

[514] Ibid. 394; Reyher, 499; from Harl. MS. 247, f. 172ᵛ

[515] Mediaeval Stage, i. 396.

[516] Leland, Collectanea, v. 359; Reyher, 500; from Ralph Starkey, Booke of Certain Triumphes (Harl. MS. 69, f. 29v); Grose and Astle, The Antiquarian Repertory, ii. 249.

[517] Halle, i. 15, 21, 22, 25, 40; Brewer, ii. 2, 1490 sqq., from Revels Accounts (Misc. Bks. Exch., T. of R. 217).

[518] Brotanek, 118; Reyher, 14, citing, inter alia, A Manifest Detection of ... Diceplay (Percy Soc. lxxxvii), 37, 'If it be winter season when masking is most in use ... they hire ... a suit of right masking apparel, and after, invite divers guests to a supper, all such as be then of estimation, to give them credit by their acquaintance, or such as ... will be liberal to hazard some thing in a mumchance; by which means they assure themselves, at the least, to have supper scot free; perchance to win xxˡᶦ about. And howsoever the common people esteem the thing I am clear out of doubt, that the more half of your gay masks in London are grounded upon such cheating crafts, and tend only the pouling and robbing of the King's subjects'. The dice were loaded otherwise for Richard II. A 'mummery', with 'foure visards, foure gownes, a boxe and a drumme', is dramatized in Soliman and Perseda (Boas, Kyd, 189), ii. 1, 187, where for 'Charleman is come' (l. 228), lege 'Christemas is come'. It is in dumb show, which confirms the supposed etymological connexion with 'mum' (cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 396). 'Mumchance' is a common term for dice-play. But the French momon, momerie, and Italian mumia do not appear to have been specialized in the English sense. 'Some goodly mummery at supper' was planned for the meeting of Henry VIII and Charles V at Gravelines in July 1520 (Rutland Papers, C. S. 54). Jonson introduces Mumming as a dancer in his Masque of Christmas (1616).

[519] For France, cf. the examples of 1377, 1389, 1393, 1457, &c., cited by Brotanek, 287, Prunières, 3; the verses of Charles d'Orléans (> 1415) for a mommerie of women (ed. d'Héricault, i. 148); the 'danse en barboire, en laquelle fut dancé à la mode de France, de l'Allemaigne, d'Espaigne et Lombardye, et à la fin en la manière de Poitou' at the betrothal of Claude of France and Charles of Austria in 1501 (Jean d'Auton, Chron. de Louis XII, ii. 99); and the revels during the Italian campaigns of Louis at Pavia and Milan in 1507 (Jean d'Auton, iv. 289, 311). At Milan lords danced 'en masque' and ladies danced 'a relays les unes après les autres', but it is not definitely said that ladies and maskers danced together. The 'danse en barboire' possibly illustrates the enigmatical barbaturiae of which the nuns of St. Radegund in Poitou were guilty in the eighth century (Mediaeval Stage, i. 362). For Burgundy, cf. Prunières, 10, citing accounts of the crusaders' Feast of the Pheasant (1454), and the wedding of Duke Charles and Margaret of York (1468). In 1454 there were dumb shows of the Golden Fleece, followed by the entry of Grâce-Dieu and her train of Virtues, who delivered a speech and then 'commencèrent à danser en guise de mommeries'. In 1468 there were 'entremectz mouvans' of the Labours of Hercules (Olivier de la Marche, ed. Soc. H. F. iii. 134, 143). These shows were given while the guests were still at table. When they were over, the tables were cleared away, and the guests danced.

[520] To the entremetz of France correspond the intermedii of Italy. These, as described by Creizenach, ii. 419; D'Ancona, ii. 168, 420; Symonds, Shakspeare's Predecessors, 321; Renaissance in Italy, v. 122; Prunières, 28; Cunliffe, Early English Classical Tragedies, xxxix, and in M. L. A. xxii. 150 and M. P. iv. 597, were entr'actes to late fifteenth and early sixteenth-century plays, but very similar shows were given independently at banquets; e. g. the mimetic chori with Silenus for risus devised by Bergonzio Botta for the wedding of Giangaleazzo Sforza and Isabella of Aragon at Tortona in 1489 (Calchi, Nuptiae Mediolaniorum Ducum in Graevius, Thesaurus, ii. 1, 509). Trionfi are primarily out-of-door processions with cars.

[521] Halle, i. 40; Brewer, ii. 1497, from Revels Accounts.

[522] Mediaeval Stage, i. 401; cf. Brotanek, 67.

[523] Evans, xxi; Reyher, 491; Cunliffe in M. L. A. xxii. 140.

[524] Cf. Marlowe, Edward II, 55 'He haue Italian maskes by night'. 'Mask' seems to be derived from a Teutonic root related to Lat. macula, and means a 'net' or 'stain'. Both 'maske' and 'maskel' are M.E. forms; but I do not find the word used in connexion with disguisings, either for the performance or for the vizard, before 1512. Halle's book was unfinished at his death in 1547, and for him 'maske' and its derivative 'masker' are regular for the performance and the performer. He also uses a 'masker' (i. 215), a 'maskery' (i. 209), 'in maskeler' (i. 209), 'apparel of maskery' (i. 217), and 'maskyng apparel' (i. 171, 217; ii. 220). For the face-mask he retains 'viser'. The Revels Accounts for 1512-22 use 'maskeller' or 'meskeller' as noun abstract and adjective, and 'maskelyng' or 'meskellyng' as adjective or participle. 'Masking garments', and 'a maske' for the performance first appear in a Revels document of 1539. In those of Cawarden's time 'maske' and its derivatives are established. Jonson (cf. p. 176) seems responsible for stereotyping the spelling 'masque', which, however, Lyly (cf. Works, ii. 103) had used before him.

[525] Ronsard (ed. Marty-Leveaux), vi. 310.

[526] This is at the end of a farsa by Jacopo Sannazaro given before Alfonso Duke of Calabria in 1492 (D'Ancona, ii. 98, from Opere of 1723). 'Subito uscirono li trombetti sonando, tutti vestiti riccamente d'una maniera, l'illustrissimo signore Principe di Capua con gli altri in mumia, delicatamente vestiti ad una maniera del Signore di Castiglia ... con torcie in mano ballando. Da poi, ciascuno prese una Signora per la mano, e ballò la sua alta e bassa; e con le torchie in mano se ne tornorono: e per quella sera così ebbe fine la festa.' In a revel at Ferrara in 1473 (Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. xxiv. 244), Duke Hercules and his fellows danced with the ladies, and then came in 'grande multitudini di mascare', and danced; but it is not clear that the Duke was a masker, or that the masked persons danced with the ladies. I should add that I have not been able to make any complete or first-hand investigation of foreign analogies to the mask. Doubtless the street masks of the Florentine carnival had a folk origin like that which I assign to the English mumming; for their elaboration by Lorenzo de' Medici (1448-92) cf. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, iv. 338; D'Ancona, i. 253; Prunières, 20. M. Prunières appears to regard the 'taking out' to dance as no part of the original custom, but an adaptation due to the courts of Ferrara and Modena at the end of the fifteenth century.

[527] It is significant that John Farlyon in 1534 was appointed Yeoman of masks, revels, and disguisings; Cawarden in 1544 Master of revels and masks (Tudor Revels, 7, 9; cf. p. 72). In Jonson's Masque of Augurs (1623) Notch says to the Groom of the Revels, 'Disguise was the old English word for a masque, Sir, before you were an implement belonging to the Revels'.

[528] Halle, i. 57, 117, 143, 149, 153, 171, 176, 179, 208, 215, 220, 234, 238, 247, 249, 256; ii. 24, 79, 87, 108, 149, 183, 220, 303, 360; Brewer, ii. 2, 1490; iii. 1548; iv. 418, 1390, 1415, 1603, from Revels Accounts.

[529] Halle, ii. 220.

[530] The descriptions of the devices employed in the 'great chamber of disguisings' at Greenwich in 1527 (Halle, ii. 86, 108) suggest that they were fixed. The setting for one of the masks was certainly revealed 'by lettyng doune of a courtaine', not by wheeling in a pageant.

[531] The available material for 1547-58 is collected, mainly from the Revels documents in the Loseley MSS., by A. Feuillerat in Materialien, xliv.

[532] Il Schifanoya to Castellan of Mantua (V. P. vii. 11), 'As I suppose your Lordship will have heard of the farsa performed in the presence of her Majesty on the day of the Epiphany, and I not having sufficient intellect to interpret it, nor yet the mummery performed after supper on the same day, of crows in the habits of Cardinals, of asses habited as Bishops, and of wolves representing Abbots, I will consign it to silence.... Nor will I record the levities and unusual licentiousness practised at the Court in dances and banquets, nor the masquerade of friars in the streets of London.'

[533] Il Schifanoya to Mantuan Ambassador at Brussels (V. P. vii. 27), 'Last evening at the Court a double mummery was played: one set of mummers rifled the Queen's ladies, and the other set, with wooden swords and bucklers, recovered the spoil. Then at the dance the Queen performed her part, the Duke of Norfolk being her partner, in superb array.'

[534] Machyn, 204, 206.

[535] On 31 Jan. (Machyn, 221) 'ther was a play a-for her grace, the wyche the plaers plad shuche matter that they wher commondyd to leyff off, and contenent the maske cam in dansyng'.

[536] The succession of masks for 1558-60 is traceable with the aid of Il Schifanoya from an analysis of the following Revels documents, (a) an inventory of 26 March 1555 (Feuillerat, Ed. and M. 180), (b) the accounts from 26 March 1555 to 29 Sept. 1559 (Feuillerat, Ed. and M. 195-242; Eliz. 79-108), (c) an estimate of the cost of the 1559-60 masks (Feuillerat, Eliz. 110), (d) a 'rere-account' of the uses to which the masks inventoried in (a) and certain stuffs subsequently issued to the Masters of the Revels had been put during 1555-60 (Feuillerat, Eliz. 18), and (e) an inventory of c. May 1560 (Feuillerat, Eliz. 37). There were fifteen sets of masking garments in store in 1555, Mariners, Venetian Senators, Turkish Magistrates, Greek Worthies, Albanian Warriors, Turkish Archers, Irish Kerns, Galley-Slaves (torch-bearers), Falconers (torch-bearers), Palmers (torch-bearers), Turkish Commoners (torch-bearers), Huntresses, Venuses, Nymphs, and Turkish Women. Some of these were no longer serviceable and became fees; the rest were gradually pulled to pieces during 1555-60 and used with fresh material in constructing new sets. As a result the inventory of 1560 contains none of the sets of 1555, but seventeen of later origin, Patriarchs, Actaeons, Hunters (torch-bearers to Actaeons), Nusquams, Turkish Commoners (torch-bearers to Nusquams, not the set of 1555), Barbarians, Venetian Commoners (torch-bearers to Barbarians), Clowns, Hinds (torch-bearers to Clowns), Swart Rutters, Almayns (torch-bearers to Swart Rutters, although not so described), Moors, Diana and her Nymphs, Maidens (torch-bearers to Diana), Italian Women, Fishwives, and Marketwives. The rere-account shows that in the interim between 1555 and 1560 eleven other sets had come into existence and been picked to pieces again. There were Almayns (not the 1560 set), Palmers (not the 1555 set), Irishmen (not the 1555 set), Hungarians, Conquerors, Mariners, or Shipmen (not the 1555 set), Moorish friars (torch-bearers), Fishermen (torch-bearers), Astronomers, and unnamed torch-bearers to Astronomers and to Patriarchs. A number of ecclesiastical costumes had also been made, of which a few were still in store in 1560, and which evidently belong to the mask described by Il Schifanoya. It seems clear from the Revels Accounts that the only new mask between 1555 and the end of Mary's reign was one of Almayns, Pilgrims, and Irishmen on 25 April 1557 (Feuillerat, Edw and M. 225). This accounts for three of the twelve interim sets. The other nine and the seventeen in the 1560 inventory must all be Elizabethan. The documents give or indicate dates for most of them. A process of exclusions obliges us to place the Conquerors, Moors, and Hungarians in the early part of 1559. Here are three vacant dates. Il Schifanoya tells us that there was a second company of maskers on Shrove Sunday, besides the Swart Rutters, whom the accounts assign to that day. The Hungarians would be appropriate antagonists to the Swart Rutters. There were also two unspecified masks at the time of the Coronation, one on the next day, 16 Jan., the other 'on the Sondaye seven nighte after the Coronacion', which as 15 Jan. was itself a Sunday, probably means 22 rather than 29 Jan. As part of the garments of the Moors had previously been used for the Conquerors (Feuillerat, Eliz. 20), the Moors must have been the later of the two. The masks of 11 July and 6 August 1559 were probably not given at the royal cost, as the Revels documents are quite silent about them. My list agrees in the main with that in Wallace, i. 199, which however has some errors. There is no evidence for masks on 2 Feb. and 6 Feb. 1559. The list in Feuillerat, Eliz. xiii, is incomplete.

[537] Brantôme, Hommes illustres et Capitaines françois (ed. Buchon, i. 312), 'La reyne ... donna un soir à soupper, où après se fit un ballet de ses filles, qu'elle avoit ordonné et dressé, représentant les vierges de l'Évangile, desquelles les unes avoient leurs lampes allumées, et les autres n'avoient ny huille ny feu, et en demandoient. Ces lampes estoient d'argent, fort gentiment faictes et elabourées; et les dames estoient très-belles, bien honnestes et bien apprises, qui prindrent nous autres François pour dancer.'

[538] Machyn, 275, 276, 'The furst day of Feybruary at nyght was the goodlyest masket cam owt of London that ever was seen, of a C. and d' [? 150] gorgyously be-sene, and a C. cheynes of gold, and as for trumpettes and drumes, and as for torchelyghte a ij hundered, and so to the cowrt, and dyvers goodly men of armes in gylt harnes, and Julyus Sesar played.' The last word is in a later hand, and according to Wallace, i. 200, is a nineteenth-century forgery.

[539] M. S. C. i. 144; Collier, i. 178; from Lansd. MS. v, f. 126, endorsed 'Maij 1562'. A warrant of 10 May 1562 for the delivery of silks for masks and revels to the Master of the Revels is in Feuillerat, Eliz. 114.

[540] I strongly suspect that the second night's mask was really intended to be one of lords, not ladies.

[541] Machyn, 300. Machyn, 215, 222, 248, 288, 300, records several masks in the City during 1559-63. The diary ends in August 1563.

[542] Feuillerat, Eliz. 116, 'the ixᵗʰ of Iune repayringe and new makinge of thre maskes with thare hole furniture and diuers devisses and a castle ffor ladies and a harboure ffor lords and thre harrolds and iiij trompetours too bringe in the devise with the men of armes and showen at the courtte of Richmond before the Quenes Maiestie and the ffrench embassitours, &c.'

[543] Froude, vii. 199; De Silva to Philip (Sp. P. i. 367, 385), 'after supper ... the Queen came out to the hall, which was lit with many torches, where the comedy was represented. I should not have understood much of it, if the Queen had not interpreted, as she told me she would do. They generally deal with marriage in the comedies.... The comedy ended, and then there was a mask of certain gentlemen who entered dressed in black and white, which the Queen told me were her colours, and after dancing a while one of them approached and handed the Queen a sonnet in English, praising her.' A banquet followed, ending at 2 a.m.

[544] Feuillerat, Eliz. 116, 'Cristmas ... canvas to couer diuers townes and howsses and other devisses and clowds for a maske and a showe and a play by the childerne of the chaple.... The xviijᵗʰ of Fabruarie ... provicions for a play maid by Sir Percivall Hartts sones with a mask of huntars and diuers devisses and a rocke, or hill for the ix musses to singe vppone with a vayne of sarsnett dravven vpp and downe before them.... Shroftid ... foure maskes too of them nott occupied nor sene with thare hole furniture which be verie fayr and riche of old stuf butt new garnished with frenge and tassells to seme new'; cf. De Silva to Philip of the revel after a tilt on 5 March (Sp. P. i. 404). It began after supper with 'a comedy in English of which I understood just as much as the Queen told me. The plot was founded on the question of marriage, discussed between Juno and Diana, Juno advocating marriage and Diana chastity. Jupiter gave a verdict in favour of matrimony, after many things had passed on both sides in defence of the respective arguments. The Queen turned to me and said, "This is all against me". After the comedy there was a masquerade of Satyrs, or wild gods, who danced with the ladies, and when this was finished there entered 10 parties of 12 gentlemen each, the same who fought in the foot tourney, and these, all armed as they were, danced with the ladies; a very novel ball, surely.'

[545] Hume, Year after Armada, 283; De Silva to Philip (Sp. P. i. 452), 'a ball, a tourney, and two masks'. These were after supper and ended at 1.30 a.m.

[546] Pound's speeches are in Rawl. Poet. MS. 108 (Bodl. MS. 14601), f. 24; De Silva to Philip (July 1566, Sp. P. i. 565), 'a masquerade and a long ball, after which they entered in new disguises for a foot tournament'. The chief challenger was Ormond. On Pound's career as a masker and its strange end, cf. ch. xxiii.

[547] Feuillerat, Eliz. 119, 'the altering and newe makinge of sixe maskes out of ould stuff with torche bearers thervnto wherof iiijᵒʳ hathe byne shewene before vs, and two remayne vnshewen', 124, 125, 126.

[548] Ibid. 129, 134, 139, 146.

[549] Fleay, 19; Brotanek, 25. But the resemblances are only partial, cf. M. S. C. i. 144.

[550] Feuillerat, Eliz. 153.

[551] G. Gascoigne, A devise of a Maske for the right honorable Viscount Mountacute (Works, i. 75, from The Posies of 1575). The date is fixed by Thomas Giles's letter.

[552] The reproductions in Strutt, Manners and Customs, iii, pl. xi, and Withington, i. 208, omit the wedding table. The pictures must be later than Sir H. Unton's death in 1596. Ashmole, Berks, iii. 313, dates his wedding with Dorothy, daughter of Sir Thomas Wroughton of Broad Hinton, Wilts, in 1580.

[553] Feuillerat, Eliz. 409.

[554] Ibid., Eliz. 171-81, 'gloves for maskers', 'the lordes gloves', 'the torcheberers gloves', 'ladye maskers', 'women maskers', 'Haunce Eottes for painting of patternes for maskes', 'the masks on New Yeres daye', 'the dubble mask', 'a keye for Janus', 'ffyn white lam to make snoballs', 'spunges for snoballs', 'musk kumfettes ... corianders ... clove cumfettes ... synamon kumfettes ... rose water ... spike water ... gynger cumfettes ... all whiche served for fflakes of yse and hayle stones in the maske of Ianvs the roze water sweetened the balls made for snow-balles presented to her Maiestie by Ianvs', 'a nett for the ffishers maskers', 'berdes for fyshers vj', curled heare for fyshers capps', 'roches counterfet ... whitings ... thornebackes ... smeltes ... mackerells ... fflownders', 'wooll to stuf the fishes', 'banketting frutes', 'basketes of ffrute', 'mowldes to cast the frutes and ffishes in'.

[555] Ibid. 183, 191.

[556] Ibid. 193-221.

[557] Cf. p. 87.

[558] Feuillerat, Eliz. 234-46, 'vj bandes for hattes for maskers', 'gloves for ... maskers', '23ᵒ Decembris ... Mirors or looking-glasses for the pedlers mask xij small at ijˢ the peece and vj greater at iiijˢ the peece', '29ᵒ Decembris ... ffayer wryting of pozies for the mask', '6ᵒ Ianuarii ... ix little hampers at xxᵈ the peece for the pedlers mask', 'ffyne yolow to wryte vpon the mirrors'.

[559] Laneham, 33; cf. chh. iv, p. 123, and xxiv.

[560] Feuillerat, Eliz. 264-70.

[561] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[562] Feuillerat, Eliz. 286, 294; Sp. P. ii. 627, 630, 'an entertainment in imitation of a tournament, between six ladies and a like number of gentlemen who surrendered to them'. Mr. Tresham and Mr. Knowles were Knights.

[563] Ibid. 308.

[564] Ibid. 340, 345, '1ᵒ Aprilis 1581, what monnie is to be allowed in prest for certayne shewes to be had at Whitehal ... The Mounte, Dragon with the fyer workes, Castell with the fallyng sydes, Tree with shyldes, Hermytage and hermytt, Savages, Enchaunter, Charryott, and incydentes to theis cc markes'.

[565] Ibid. 344 (table), 346.

[566] Ibid. 349.

[567] Ibid. 360 (table). The Jervoise MSS. (H. M. C. Various MSS. iv. 163) contain verses dated 1586 for a mask from Basingstoke to Richard Pawlett, doubtless a kinsman of the Marquis of Winchester at Basing.

[568] Feuillerat, Eliz. 365, 378. A mask followed the play of Catiline, with which Lord Burghley was entertained at Gray's Inn on 16 Jan. 1588 (M. S. C. i. 179).

[569] Feuillerat, Eliz. 392.

[570] Arthur Throgmorton to Robert Cecil (Hatfield MSS. v. 99; cf. Sh. Homage, 158), 'Matter of mirth from a good mind can minister no matter of malice, both being, as I believe, far from such sourness (and for myself I will answer for soundness). I am bold to write my determination, grounded upon grief and true duty to the Queen, thankfulness to my lord of Derby (whose honourable brother honoured my marriage), and to assure you I bear no spleen to yourself. If I may I mind to come in a masque, brought in by the nine muses, whose music, I hope, shall so modify the easy softened mind of her Majesty as both I and mine may find mercy. The song, the substance I have herewith sent you, myself, whilst the singing, to lie prostrate at her Majesty's feet till she says she will save me. Upon my resurrection the song shall be delivered by one of the muses, with a ring made for a wedding ring set round with diamonds, and with a ruby like a heart placed in a coronet, with this inscription Elizabetha potest. I durst not do this before I had acquainted you here with, understanding her Majesty had appointed the masquers, which resolution hath made me the unreadier: yet, if this night I may know her Majesty's leave and your liking, I hope not to come too late, though the time be short for such a show and my preparations posted for such a presence. I desire to come in before the other masque, for I am sorrowful and solemn, and my stay shall not be long. I rest upon your resolution, which must be for this business to-night or not at all.'

[571] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 417, and ch. xxiv.

[572] Cf. J. A. Manning, Memoirs of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, 9, and Mediaeval Stage, i. 416, where, however, the date suggested is the Christmas of 1599-1600. But the Court was not in London that winter, and the indications of days of the week agree with 1597-8. The manuscript description written by Rudyerd is dated 'anno ab aula condita 27'. The Middle Temple hall was built in 1572. The masks in this hall were on 31 Dec. and 7 and 21 Jan. The maskers were accompanied to Court on 6 Jan. by nine torch-bearers carrying devices, eleven knights, eleven squires, and a hundred other torches, as well as trumpeters and heralds. 'Sur Martino', no doubt Richard Martin, the Prince d'Amour, was their leader. Doubtless they took out ladies, as Mrs. Nevill, afterwards a maid of honour, is said to have 'borne the bell away' in the revels.

[573] Boississe, i. 415. He says that some gentlemen masked with the filles, of which there is no trace in the other accounts. Letters from Lady Russell about the wedding are in Cecil Papers, x. 121, 175, and it is also referred to by Chamberlain, 79, 83. 'I doubt not but you have heard of the great mariage at the Lady Russell's ... and of the maske of eight maides of honour and other gentlewomen in name of the muses that came to seeke one of theire fellowes', and by Rowland Whyte (Sydney Papers, ii. 195, 197, 201, 203),'Mʳˢ Fitton led, and after they had done all their own ceremonies, these eight Ladies Maskers chose eight Ladies more to dance the measures. Mʳˢ Fitton went to the Queen, and wooed her to dance; her Majesty asked what she was. "Affection," she said. "Affection!" said the Queen, "Affection is false." Yet her Majesty rose and danced.' A picture of the Marcus Gheeraerts school (cf. L. Cust in Trans. Walpole Soc. iii. 22) probably representing Elizabeth's passage through Blackfriars on this occasion is extant in two versions at Melbury and Sherborne, and has often been reproduced; e. g. in Shakespeare's England, i. f.p.

[574] Popham to Cecil, 8 Feb. 1602 (Hatfield MSS. xii. 47), 'I have so dealt with some of the Benchers of the Middle Temple as I have brought that the House will be willing to bear 200 marks towards the charge of what is wished to be done, to her Majesty's good liking, and if the young gentlemen will be drawn in to perform what is of their part, I hope it will be effected. Some of the young men have their humors, but I hope that will be over-ruled, for I send for them as soon as other business of her Majesty is dispatched. But the Ancients of the House, who wish all to be done to her Majesty's best content, depend upon your favour if anything through young men's error should not have that carriage in the course of it, as they would wish it might not yet be imputed unto them.' There is no reference to any mask in the records of the Middle Temple, which in 1601-2 kept a 'solemn' but not a 'grand' Christmas.

[575] Manningham, 1, 'Song to the Queene at the Maske at Court, Nov. 2'. The Song begins, 'Mighty Princes of a fruitfull land'. The November of 1602 is the only one covered by the period of the diary; but Elizabeth was then at Richmond, rather out of reach of a lawyers' mask.

[576] An Italian model for such printed descriptions may be found in that of G. Cecchi's Florentine Esaltazione della Croce (1589); cf. A. D'Ancona, Sacre Rappresentazioni, iii. 1, 235; Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, iv. 282.

[577] J. A. Lester, Some Franco-Scottish Influences on the Early English Drama (Haverford Essays, 1909), 145, notes the vogue of the mask at Holyrood under Mary Stuart and the pompae written for such occasions by Buchanan. He asserts that Anne acquired the taste for masks during her thirteen years' residence in Scotland, but in fact he cites no example of a mask proper during 1590-1603, and only one, in 1581, during the reign of James. There were other forms of mimetic revelry. The pageants introduced by Bastien Pagez into a banquet at the baptism of James in 1566 and accompanied with verses by Buchanan are analogous to those at the baptism of Henry Frederick in 1594 (Somers Tracts, ii. 179).

[578] Jonson told Drummond in 1619 (Conversations, 4), 'That next himself, only Fletcher and Chapman could make a mask'. No independent mask by Fletcher is known, and that in The Maid's Tragedy is probably Beaumont's. Fletcher may have written the Triumph of Time in Four Plays or Morall Representations, which is practically a mask.

[579] Lodge, iii. 58; Beaumont to Villeroy (27 Oct. 1603) in King's MS. 124, f. 175, 'Elle fit jl y' a quelques jourz vn ballet ou pour mieux dire vne masquarade champêtre. Car il n'y avoit ni ordre ni depense. Mais Elle se propose d'en faire d'autres plus beaux cet hiver en recompense et semble que le Roy et ses Principaux Ministres, qui sont toujourz en Jalousie de son Esprit, soient bien aises de le voir occupé en cet exercice.'

[580] Harington, i. 349, 'One day, a great feast was held, and, after dinner, the representation of Solomon his Temple and the coming of the Queen of Sheba was made, or (as I may better say) was meant to have been made, before their Majesties, by device of the Earl of Salisbury and others. But alass! as all earthly thinges do fail to poor mortals in enjoyment, so did prove our presentment hereof. The Lady who did play the Queens part, did carry most precious gifts to both their Majesties; but, forgetting the steppes arising to the canopy, overset her caskets into his Danish Majesties lap, and fell at his feet, tho I rather think it was in his face. Much was the hurry and confusion; cloths and napkins were at hand, to make all clean. His Majesty then got up and would dance with the Queen of Sheba; but he fell down and humbled himself before her, and was carried to an inner chamber, and laid on a bed of state; which was not a little defiled with the presents of the Queen which had been bestowed on his garments; such as wine, cream, jelly, beverage, cakes, spices, and other good matters. The entertainment and show went forward, and most of the presenters went backward, or fell down; wine did so occupy their upper chambers. Now did appear, in rich dress, Hope, Faith, and Charity: Hope did assay to speak, but wine rendered her endeavours so feeble that she withdrew, and hoped the King would excuse her brevity: Faith was then all alone, for I am certain she was not joyned with good works, and left the court in a staggering condition: Charity came to the King's feet, and seemed to cover the multitude of sins her sisters had committed; in some sorte she made obeysance and brought giftes, but said she would return home again, as there was no gift which heaven had not already given his Majesty. She then returned to Hope and Faith, who were both sick and spewing in the lower hall. Next came Victory, in bright armour, and presented a rich sword to the King, who did not accept it, but put it by with his hand; and, by a strange medley of versification, did endeavour to make suit to the King. But Victory did not tryumph long; for, after much lamentable utterance, she was led away like a silly captive, and laid to sleep in the outer steps of the anti-chamber. Now did Peace make entry, and strive to get foremoste to the King; but I grieve to tell how great wrath she did discover unto those of her attendants; and, much contrary to her semblance, most rudely made war with her olive branch, and laid on the pates of those who did oppose her coming.'

[581] Chamber Accounts (1610-11, Apparellings), 'for making ready the La: Eliz: Lodginges for a maske'.

[582] Perhaps Jonson's persistent use of 'masque' for the older 'mask' confesses a sense of derivation in his mind.

[583] The data are collected by Prunières, 34.

[584] Brantôme (ed. Soc. H. F.), vii. 346; Prunières, 48 sqq.; Brotanek, 291.

[585] Magnificentissimi spectaculi ... in Henrici Regis Poloniae ... gratulationem Descriptio Io Aurato Poeta Regio Autore (1573); cf. Lacroix, i. xxi, and the engraving reproduced by Prunières as pl. 2. Prunières, 70, thinks that Baltasar had already taken part in the 'mascarade', half-tilt, half-dance, at the wedding of Henri of Navarre in 1572.

[586] Balet comique de la Royne faict aux Nopces de Monsieur le Duc de Joyeuse et de Mademoyselle de Vaudemont, sa Sœur, par Baltasar de Beaujoyeulx, Valet de Chambre du Roy et de la Royne, sa Mere (1582). This is reprinted, but without the engravings, by Lacroix, i. 1; cf. Prunières, 75, who gives one of the engravings as his pl. 3.

[587] Prunières, 94 sqq. Lacroix, i. 89, 109, 237, 271, 305, prints four French masks which allow of a useful comparison with those of England, viz. Ballet des Chevaliers François et Béarnois (1592), Balletz representez devant le Roy (1593), Ballet de Monseigneur le Duc de Vandosme (1610); Ballet du Courtisan et des Matrones (1612); also a description of Le Grand Bal de la Reine Marguerite (1612), which shows the relation of the mask to the contemporary non-mimetic state ball. On French masks of 1605, 1609, 1612, and 1615, cf. Sullivan, 29, 52, 67, 99.

[588] Exceptionally, the main scene was supplemented by a throne 'in midst of the hall' in the Mask of Beauty and by a mount and tree at the upper end of the hall in Tethys' Festival.

[589] On Hans Eottes, or Eworth, first traceable as Jon Eeuwowts of Antwerp in 1540, and the considerable body of portrait work now ascribed to him, cf. L. Cust, The Painter E (Annual of Walpole Soc. ii. 1; iii. 113). On Ferrabosco and Ubaldini, ch. xiv (Italians).

[590] For the career of Jones, cf. D. N. B., Reyher, 75; R. Blomfield in Portfolio (1889), 88, 113, 126; and Renaissance Architecture in England, i. 97; H. P. Horne, An Essay on the Life of Inigo Jones, Architect in The Hobby Horse (1893), 22, 64; Cunningham, Inigo Jones (1848). Designs by Jones for the scenery, stage-machinery, and dresses of masks and other court entertainments are in Lansdowne MS. 1171, and in the collections of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth and of the Royal Institute of British Architects. They are mostly of the Caroline rather than the Jacobean period. A few have been reproduced by Cunningham, Reyher, and Lawrence, ii. 97. P. Simpson (Sh. England, ii. 311) gives eight figures for the Mask of Queens.

[591] 'The design and act of all which, together with the device of their habits, belong properly to the merit and reputation of Master Inigo Jones, whom I take modest occasion in this fit place to remember, lest his own worth might accuse me of an ignorant neglect from my silence' (Hymenaei); 'The structure and ornament ... was entirely Master Jones's invention and design.... All which I willingly acknowledge for him; since it is a virtue planted in good natures, that what respects they wish to obtain fruitfully from others they will give ingenuously themselves' (Queens).

[592] 'The artificiall part onely speakes Master Inago Jones' (Tethys' Festival); 'I suppose few have ever seen more neat artifice than Master Inigo Jones shewed in contriving their motion, who in all the rest of the workmanship which belonged to the whole invention shewed extraordinary industry and skill, which if it be not as lively exprest in writing as it appeared in view, rob not him of his due, but lay the blame on my want of right apprehending his instructions for the adorning his art' (Lords).

[593] Cunningham, Jonson, iii. 211.

[594] Mask of Blackness (1605); Hymenaei (1606); Haddington Mask (1608); Mask of Queens (1609); Tethys' Festival (1610); Oberon (1611); Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly (1611); Lords' Mask (1613); Chapman's Mask (1613). The designers of the Hay Mask (1607), Beaumont's Mask (1613), and the Mask of the Twelve Months are not named. Jonson says that the scene of the Mask of Beauty (1608) was 'put in act' by the King's Master Carpenter. This was an officer of the Works, one William Portington (Jupp, Carpenters' Company, 165). He was not necessarily the designer, but Jonson does not, as one would expect, mention Jones. Love Restored (1612) had a chariot, but perhaps no scene. The Irish Mask (1613) seems to be a Jacobean example of the simple mask. The Caversham Mask (1613) is another, but this was not at court.

[595] A far more thorough treatment than is possible for me will be found in the chapter on La Mise en Scène, in Reyher, 332.

[596] Designs by Jones for proscenia (of Caroline date) are reproduced by Lawrence (i. 97), The Mounting of the Carolan Masques; on proscenium titles, cf. Lawrence, i. 46.

[597] Feuillerat, Eliz. 117; cf. Halle, ii. 87.

[598] An ingenious paper on The Story of a Peculiar Stage Curtain in Lawrence, i. 109, suggests an affiliation between this sinking curtain and the Roman aulaeum.

[599] Chamber Accounts; cf. Reyher, 358.

[600] Reyher, 367.

[601] Cf. ch. xx.

[602] Cf. ch. xix.

[603] Cunliffe, The Influence of Italian on Early Elizabethan Drama (M. P. iv. 597), and Early English Classical Tragedies, xl.

[604] F. A. Foster, Dumb Show in Elizabethan Drama before 1620 (E. S. xliv. 8); cf. ch. xviii.

[605] Cunliffe, xxxi, xxxix.

[606] For the spectacle as dream, cf. Henry VIII, iv. 2; Cymbeline, v. 4, which, like the epiphany in A. Y. L. v. 4, perhaps illustrates the point all the better in that it is probably an interpolation; for the spectacle as magic show, Marlowe, Dr. Faustus, 515, 721, 1263; Macbeth, iv. 1; Tempest, iii. 3, and the mock magic of Merry Wives, v. 5. The mask of Tempest, iv. 1, is of course both mask and magic.

[607] Hamlet, iii. 2. 146. On the play within a play, cf. H. Schwab, Das Schauspiel im Schauspiel zur Zeit Shaksperes (1896).

[608] In Spanish Tragedy, i. 5, Hieronimo brings in a 'pompous jest' in which three knights hang up their scutcheons and capture three kings. This is called a 'mask' (l. 23), but there is no dance, only a dumb-show interpreted by Hieronimo. Similarly the 'Maske of Cupid' in Spenser, F. Q. III. xii, is merely an allegorical procession, without a dance. Later, Dekker and Ford's play of The Sun's Darling (1656) is described on the title-page as 'a moral masque'.

[609] Cf. Boas, 206.

[610] L. L. L. v. 2; R. J. i. 4, 5. Similarly the mask in Hen. VIII, i. 4, is suggested by the historic source. In M. V. ii. 5, 28, Shylock warns Jessica against masks in the street, with their drum and 'wry-necked fife', but none is shown.

[611] Marston, 1 Antonio and Mellida (1599; v. 1), 2 Antonio and Mellida (1599; v. 1, 2), Dutch Courtesan (1603; iv. 1), Malcontent (1604; v. 2, 3), Insatiate Countess (c. 1610; ii. 1); Chapman, May Day (1602; v. 1), Widow's Tears (1605; iii. 2), Byron's Tragedy (1608; ii. 1); Middleton, The Old Law (a mask in a tavern, 1599; iv. 1), Blurt Master Constable (c. 1600; ii. 2), A Mad World, my Masters (c. 1604-6; ii. 2, 4, 5), Your Five Gallants (1607; iv. 8; v. 1, 2), No Wit, no Help, like a Woman's (c. 1613; iv. 2); Field, A Woman is a Weathercock (c. 1609; v. 1, 2); Jonson, Cynthia's Revels (1601; iv. 5, 6; v. 1-5).

[612] The Coxcomb (1610; i. 1), Maid's Tragedy (1611; i. 1, 2), Four Plays in One (1612; i. v), Two Noble Kinsmen (not strictly a mask, 1613; iii. 5), Henry VIII (1613; i. 4), Wit at Several Weapons (1614; v. 1).

[613] A. H. Thorndike, The Influence of the Court-Masques on the Drama (M. L. A. xv. 114); The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspere, 130, 148.

[614] I think Criticus must here be taken to be Jonson's self-portrait. He told Drummond in 1619 that 'by Criticus is understood Done' (Conversations, 6); but the reference there appears to be to the lost 'preface of his Arte of Poesie'. In the folio text of the play Criticus becomes Crites.

[615] The maskers in Wit at Several Weapons, v. i, are 'something like the abstract of a masque'; cf. R. J. i. 4. 3—

The date is out of such prolixity.

We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,

Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,

Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;

Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke

After the prompter, for our entrance.

[616] Satiromastix, 2325, 'The watch-word in a maske is the bolde drum'.

[617] I do not wish to exaggerate this detachment. Peele builds upon the customary prayer for the queen or lord at the end of an interlude (cf. chh. x, xviii, xxii), and there are the plays with inductions, such as The Taming of the Shrew and The Knight of the Burning Pestle, in which the personages of the induction mediate between the action and the audience.

[618] I find 'tronchwoman' (Feuillerat, Eliz. 217), 'troocheman' (Feuillerat, Eliz. 287), 'trounchman' (Gascoigne, i. 85), and as interpreters of mimetic tilts 'crocheman' (Halle, i. 13), 'trounchman' (Peele, Polyhymnia, 47); also 'an interpreter or a truchman' accompanying the 'orator speaking a straunge language' in the train of the Lord of Misrule in 1552-3 (Feuillerat, Edw. and M. 89, 123). W. D. Macray has the following note to 'truckman' which appears in the text of Clarendon, History, i. 75, 'i. e. truchman = dragoman. In the old editions the word "interpreter" was substituted as an explanation; in the last editions "trustman" was given as the reading of the MS.'. N. E. D. gives the earliest use of the word as 1485 and derives through Med. Lat. turchemannus from Arab. turjamān, interpreter, whence also dragoman.

[619] Generally speaking, the themes of the Jacobean masks are more literary than those of their Elizabethan precursors. The following analysis is based upon the disguises of the maskers, which may be classed under four main heads: National Types—(Elizabethan), Moors, Swart Rutters, Lance-Knights, Hungarians, Barbarians, Venetian Patriarchs, Italian Women, Venetians, Turks; (Jacobean), Indian and Chinese Knights, Virginians, Irishmen. Occupations—(Elizabethan), Ecclesiastics, Fisherwives, Marketwives, Astronomers, Shipmen, Country Maids, Clowns, Hunters, Tilters, Fishermen and Fruitwives, Mariners, Foresters, Warriors, Pedlars, Seamen; (Jacobean), none. Inanimate Objects—(Elizabethan), none; (Jacobean), Signs of Zodiac, Stars and Statues, Flowers. Abstractions—(Elizabethan), Nusquams, Virtues, Passions; (Jacobean), Humours and Affections, Ornaments of Court, Months. Historical and Mythical Personages—(Elizabethan), Conquerors, Huntsmen of Actaeon and Nymphs of Diana, Wise and Foolish Virgins, Satyrs, Greek Goddesses, Janus, Sages, Wild Men, Amazons and Knights, Knights of Purpulia, Muses; (Jacobean), Goddesses, Daughters of Niger (bis), Powers of Juno, Knights of Apollo, Sons of Mercury, Nymphs of English Rivers, Knights of Oberon, Daughters of Morn, Knights of Olympia, Disenchanted Knights, Sons of Nature, Circe's Lovers, Sons of Phoebus. It is possible that the mediaeval barbatoriae (Mediaeval Stage, i. 362) were dances representing national types. Jean d'Auton (Chroniques, ii. 99) describes, amongst other mommeries at the court of Louis XII in 1501, 'une danse en barboire, en laquelle fut dancé à la mode de France, d'Allemaigne, d'Espaigne et Lombardye, et à la fin en la manière de Poictou ... lesquelz estoyent tous habillez à la sorte du pays dont ils dancerent à la mode'.

[620] Gesta Grayorum; Hay Mask; Lords' Mask; Mask of Squires; Mask of Flowers; Browne's Mask (introducing Circe). As late as 1632 Aurelian Townshend and Inigo Jones borrow the episode of Circe and the Fugitive in Tempe Restored.

[621] An exception is Love Restored, where the place of an antimask is taken by the long comic induction by Masquerado, Plutus, and Robin Goodfellow.

[622] Chapman also uses the phrase 'mocke-maske', which is analogous to Jonson's 'antimasque'.

[623] Brotanek, 141. I find 'antick Maske' also in an Exchequer record (Reyher, 509) relating to the Lords' Mask of 1613.

[624] Cf. the opening stage-direction to James IV (1598), 'Enter after Oberon, King of Fayries, an Antique, who dance about a Tombe'.

[625] Lacroix, i. 241, 262, 291, 296.

[626] The relation of the morris-dance to the folk is described in The Mediaeval Stage, i. 195, but I think that the history of the name requires further examination. There are traces of morris-dances at court in 1559 and 1579, and there was a sword-dance on 6 Jan. 1604.

[627] Feuillerat, Edw. and Mary, 59.

[628] Romeo and Juliet, i. 4. 38, 'I'll be a candle-holder and look on'; cf. Reyher, 90, citing W. Rankins, Mirrour of Monsters (1587), 'There were certain petty fellows ready, as the custom is in maskes, to carry torches'; Westward Hoe, i. 2, 'He is just like a torch-bearer to maskers; he wears good clothes, and is ranked in good company, but he doth nothing'; Overbury, Characters (1614, ed. Rimbault, 55, An Ignorant Glory Hunter), 'In any shew he will be one, though he be but a whiffler or a torch-bearer'.

[629] A disguising of 1501 had already 'a goodly pageant made round after the fashion of a lanthorne cast out with many proper and goodly windows fenestred with fine lawne wher in were more than an hundred great lightes' (Reyher, 503).

[630] Before 1610 torch-bearers may have been omitted from Hymenaei and the Haddington Mask; after 1610, they are only noticed in Oberon, the Lords' Mask, and Chapman's Mask.

[631] The descriptions often say nothing of vizards, but probably they take them for granted, for as late as 1618 Chamberlain writes of the Gray's Inn Mask of Mountebanks (Birch, ii. 66), 'I cannot call it a masque, seeing they were not disguised, nor had vizards'. Similarly the unmasking is rarely described (Indian and Chinese Knights; Twelve Goddesses; Hay Mask), and may have been omitted as a formal stage, especially when the maskers danced off into the pageant.

[632] Cf. p. 168.

[633] Cf. ch. xxiii (Daniel, Twelve Goddesses).

[634] Cf. ch. iv.

[635] R. J. i. 5. 95; Hen. VIII, i. 4. 95,

I were unmannerly to take you out.

And not to kiss you.

The amorous tradition of the 'commoning' which apparently frightened some of the ladies at Henry's court, survived under Elizabeth. In Lyly's Euphues and his England (Works, ii. 103), Philautus takes Camilla by the hand in a mask and begins 'to boord hir' in this manner, 'It hath ben a custome faire Lady, how commendable I wil not dispute, how common you know, that Masquers do therfore couer their faces that they may open their affections, & vnder yᵉ colour of a dance, discouer their whole desires'; cf. Reyher, 23.

[636] Maid's Tragedy, i. 1. 9, 'They must commend their King, and speak in praise Of the assembly, bless the Bride and Bridegroom, In person of some God; th'are tyed To rules of flattery'.

[637] This old phrase, known to Sir T. Elyot, The Governour, i. 22, is still traditional in folk dances.

[638] On these dances, cf. Reyher, 441.

[639] Lacroix, i. 256, 262.

[640] Goodman, i. 70, 'George Brooks ... brother to Cobham ... was a great reveller at court in the masques where the queen and greatest ladies were'; Carey, 6, 'In all triumphs I was one; either at tilt, tourney, or barriers, in masque or balls'.

[641] Naunton, 44, 'Sir Christopher Hatton came into the court ... as a private gentleman of the inns of court in a mask, and for his activity and person, which was tall and proportionable, taken into favour'.

[642] C. C. Stopes, A Lampoon on the Opponents of Essex, 1601 (Sh.-Jahrbuch, xlvi. 21); Reyher, 98, apparently referring to the full-length portrait by Marc Geeraerts at Woburn Abbey, reproduced in Henderson, James I, 232. It is a fantastic costume, but not obviously that of a mask.

[643] Winwood, ii. 40.

[644] Dekker His Dream (1620, Works, iii. 7), 'I herein imitate the most courtly revellings; for if Lords be in the grand masque, in the antimasque are players'; Jonson, Love Restored (Works, iii. 83). 'The rogue play-boy, that acts Cupid, is got so hoarse, your majesty cannot hear him half the breadth of your chair'. The accounts for Oberon include £10 to 'xiijⁿ Holt boyes' and £15 to 'players imployed in the maske'; those for Love Freed £10 to '5 boyes, that is 3 Graces Sphynx and Cupid', and £12 to 'the 12 fooles that danced', and those for the Lords' Mask £1 each to '12 madfolkes' and '5 speakers' (Reyher, 508).

[645] The rehearsals were a serious business, lasting in 1616 no less than fifty days; cf. Reyher, 35. There were dress rehearsals; cf. Osborne in note to p. 206, infra.

[646] Cf. p. 163, and D. N. B., s.v. Ferrabosco.

[647] Lafontaine, 63.

[648] Reyher, 79.

[649] Feuillerat, Eliz. 356.

[650] Reyher, 78.

[651] Blackness certainly and Hymenaei probably were in the Elizabethan room. The Jacobean room was first used for Beauty (10 Jan. 1608). It was also used for Queens, Oberon, Lords, Beaumont's, Squires, and Flowers, and probably for all others from 1608 to 1616 except Chapman's.

[652] Busino, Anglopotrida (V. P. xv. 110), describing Jonson's Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue on 6 Jan. 1618, 'A large hall is fitted up like a theatre, with well secured boxes all round. The stage is at one end and his Majesty's chair in front under an ample canopy. Near him are stools for the foreign ambassadors.... Whilst waiting for the king we amused ourselves admiring the decorations and beauty of the house with its two orders of columns, one above the other, their distance from the wall equalling the breadth of the passage, that of the second row being upheld by Doric pillars, while above these rise Ionic columns supporting the roof. The whole is of wood, including even the shafts, which are carved and gilt with much skill. From the roof of these hang festoons and angels in relief with two rows of lights. Then such a concourse as there was, for although they profess only to admit the favoured ones who are invited, yet every box was filled notably with most noble and richly arrayed ladies, in number some 600 and more according to the general estimate;... On entering the house, the cornets and trumpets to the number of fifteen or twenty began to play very well a sort of recitative, and then after his Majesty had seated himself under the canopy alone, the queen not being present on account of a slight indisposition, he caused the ambassadors to sit below him on two stools, while the great officers of the crown and courts of law sat upon benches. The Lord Chamberlain then had the way cleared and in the middle of the theatre there appeared a fine and spacious area carpeted all over with green cloth. In an instant a large curtain dropped, painted to represent a tent of gold cloth with a broad fringe; the background was of canvas painted blue, powdered all over with golden stars. This became the front arch of the stage.'

[653] Finett, 32. The plan from Lansd. 1171 in Reyher, 346, dates from 1635 and represents the great Hall arranged not for a mask but for a pastoral; but the general scheme was probably much the same.

[654] Maid's Tragedy, i. 2. 32.

[655] Birch, i. 24 (27 Nov. 1603), 'many plays and shows are bespoken, to give entertainment to our ambassadors'.

[656] Sullivan, Court Masques of James I; cf. my notes on the individual masks in ch. xxiii.

[657] De Silva's dispatches of 1564-6 (cf. p. 26) show that a precisely similar situation had established itself at Elizabeth's court.

[658] Beaumont in B. M. Kings MS. cxxiv, f. 328, 'le ... ballet ... de la Reine qui se devoit danser au vendredy dernier jour des festes de Noël selon la façon d'Angleterre et le plus honnorable pour la ceremonie qui s'y obserue de tout temps publiquement'; Finett, 6, 'il se pourroit soustenir que le dernier jour seroit a prendre pour le plus gran jour comm'il s'entend en plusiours autres cas, et nommement aux festes de Noël, que le Jour des Roys qui est le dernier se prend pour le plus gran jour'. The chief masks of 1606-7, 1611-12, 1613-14, and 1614-16, were on 6 Jan. In 1603-4, 1607-8, and 1608-9, the Queen's masks were planned for that day, but put off. In 1605-6 and 1609-10 the day was given to barriers.

[659] Cf. p. 39. The accounts for the Lords' Mask include fees of £1 each to three Grooms of the Chamber; those of Chapman's Mask, given exceptionally in the great Hall, £1 to the Ushers of the Hall. The manuscript of the Mask of Blackness appears to be an abstract for use at the performance. In 1613 a Groom of the Chamber was also paid £7 for 42 nights watching in the banqueting-house while workmen were there (Chamber Accounts).

[660] Donne, Poems (ed. Grierson), i. 414; cf. Jonson, Conversations, 10.

[661] Four Plays in One, 2, 'Down with those City-Gentlemen, &c. Out with those —— I say, and in with their wives at the back door'; Love Restored, 'By this time I saw a fine citizen's wife or two let in; and that figure provoked me exceedingly to take it'. Here Robin Goodfellow is recounting his various attempts to secure admission, as an engineer, a tirewoman, a musician, a feather-maker of Blackfriars and the like. Carleton wrote of the mask on 27 Dec. 1604 (S. P. Dom. Jac. I, xii. 6), 'One woeman among the rest lost her honesty for which she was caried to the porters lodge being surprised at her bassnes on the top of the taras'.

[662] Ambassades, iii. 13.

[663] Osborne, James, 75, 'So disobliging were the most grateful pleasures of the Court; whose masks and other spectacles, though they wholly intended them for show, and would not have been pleased without great store of company, yet did not spare to affront such as come to see them; which accuseth the King no less of folly, in being at so vast an expense for that which signified nothing but in relation to pride and lust, than the spectators (I mean such as were not invited) of madness, who did not only give themselves the discomposure of body attending such irregular hours, but to others an opportunity to abuse them. Nor could I, that had none of their share who passed through the most incommodious access, count myself any great gainer (who did ever find some time before the grand night to view the scene) after I had reckoned my attendance and sleep; there appearing little observable besides the company, and what Imagination might conjecture from the placing of the Ladies and the immense charge and universal vanity in clothes, &c.'

[664] Jonson, Mask of Blackness, 7, 'Little had been done to the study of magnificence in these, if presently with the rage of the people, who (as a part of greatness) are privileged by custom to deface their carcases, the spirits had also perished'; cf. Halle, i. 27, 117. At Tethys' Festival the Duke of York and six young noblemen led off the maskers 'to avoid the confusion which usually attendeth the desolve of these shewes'.

[665] Cf. ch. xxiii; also Busino in V. P. xv. 114.

[666] Winwood. ii. 43.

[667] On 2 Feb. 1604, the Earl of Worcester wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury of The Twelve Goddeses (Lodge, iii. 87), 'I have been at sixpence charge with you to send you the book'. He adds that the books of another ballet were 'all called in'. After the Mask of Beauty Lord Lisle wrote to Shrewsbury (Lodge, App. 102) that he could not get the verses, because Jonson was busy writing more for the Haddington wedding.

[668] Cf. ch. iii.

[669] Feuillerat, Eliz. 110, 153, 168, 345, 392.

[670] Feuillerat, Eliz. 18, 112, et passim.

[671] Newcastle, On Government (S. A. Strong, Cat. of Documents at Welbeck, 223). The direct reference is to tilts, but an earlier passage runs, 'Well Sʳ Then your Maᵗᶦᵉ is well returned to White-Halle & ther prepare a maske for twelve-tyde,—Etaliens makes the Seanes beste,—& all butt your Maᵗᶦᵉ maye have their Glorius Atier off Coper which will doe as well for two or three nightes as Silver or Golde & much less charge, which otherwise will bee much founde falte withall by those thatt attendes your Maᵗᶦᵉ in the maske'.

[672] Cunningham, 203-17; cf. ch. iii.

[673] They certainly supervised Queens, Tethys' Festival, Love Freed, Lords' Mask.

[674] The privy seal of 1 Dec. 1608 for Queens is in S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxviii. 1, and that of 7 Jan. 1613 for the Lords' Mask in Collier, i. 364; a certificate of 25 May 1610 for Tethys' Festival is printed by Sullivan, 219, from S. P. D. Jac. I, liv. 74.

[675] Sullivan, 201, misdated 27 Nov. 1607 for 1608, from S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxvii. 96. The mask was Queens.

[676] Reyher, 508, 520; cf. ch. xxiii.

[677] W. ffarington writes on 7 Feb. 1609 (Chetham Soc. xxxix. 151), 'The Comonalty do somewhat murmur at such vaine expenses and thinke that that money worth bestowed other waies might have been conferred upon better use, but quod supra nos, nihil ad nos'.

[678] Reyher, 72.

[679] Collier, i. 349; Abstract, 13. The Lords' Mask is separately reckoned at £400. This was just about the amount of the 'rewards'.

[680] On the earlier custom cf. S. Cox (App. C, No. xliv). Buggin's memorandum on the Revels in 1573 (Tudor Revels, 36) contemplates the possibility of service at 'Hollantide'.

[681] Birch, i. 69.

[682] Cf. App. B. The Revels Accounts record plays which the Treasurer of the Chamber did not reward, by the Chapel (1559-60); by unnamed companies (3 plays) at Windsor (1563-4); by Westminster (Miles Gloriosus; cf. Murray, ii. 168), the Chapel, Sir Percival Hart's sons, and 'showes' by Gray's Inn (1564-5); by an unnamed company (1567-8); by an unnamed company (1581-2); and by Gray's Inn (Misfortunes of Arthur, 1587-8). For years not covered by these accounts must be added the Inner Temple Gorboduc (1562), probably their Gismond of Salerne (1566?), and not impossibly others by Gray's Inn, who, according to Elizabeth in 1595 (Gesta Grayorum, 68), 'did always study for Sports to present unto her'. I cannot understand Collier's unreferenced notice of a payment to men of George Evelyn (cf. ch. xiii) for a play in 1588. A letter of 4 Dec. 1592 from the University of Cambridge (M. S. C. i. 198, from Lansd. MS. 71), deprecating an invitation to play an English comedy at court, shows that a similar suggestion had been made to Oxford; there is no evidence that either University actually played. It is conceivable that plays may sometimes have been rewarded out of the Privy Purse (cf. ch. ii) instead of by the Treasurer of the Chamber.

[683] Cf. Calendar, s.a. 1559 (7 Aug., Paul's at Nonsuch), 1564 (5 July, play at Mr. Sackville's), 1567 (April 13, play before Elizabeth and Spanish ambassador), 1575 (plays on progress at Lichfield by Warwick's, at Kenilworth, and at Woodstock), 1578 (Aug., Ipswich play at Stowmarket), 1579 (play at Osterley), 1595 (Jan., probable performance of M. N. D. at Derby's wedding), 1601 (Aug., 'playing-wenches' at Caversham), 1601 (29 Dec., play at Hunsdon's in Blackfriars). There are also, of course, the plays at Oxford and Cambridge (cf. ch. iv). For these no money reward was paid, but the Works and Revels met some of the expenses, and the actors got a warrant for venison out of Woodstock to make a feast.

[684] Cf. p. 7.

[685] Cf. App. B, s.a. 1612-13, 1615-16.

[686] For other entertainments of the court with plays by private hosts, cf. Calendar s.a. 1605 (3 Jan., play by Spanish ambassador for Duke of Holst; 9 < > 14 Jan., Love's Labour's Lost by Southampton or Cranborne for Anne), 1607 (May 25, Aeneas and Dido by Arundel for Prince de Joinville).

[687] Cf. also M. N. D. iii. 1. 57; Isle of Gulls, iii (ed. Bullen, p. 67), 'in the great Chamber at the Reuels'. The Elizabethan Chamber Accounts rarely show the room; in 1597-8 the hall at Hampton Court, in 1600-1 the hall and in 1601-2 the great chamber at Whitehall. I have examined only a few Jacobean ones on this point; the hall, great chamber, and banqueting-house, at Whitehall, were all used in 1604-5; the hall, banqueting-house, and cockpit in 1610-11; the banqueting-house twice in April 1612-13.

[688] Cf. App. B, s.a. 1608-12. On the Cockpit cf. Stowe, Survey, ii. 102, 374; Sheppard, Whitehall, 66; W. J. Lawrence in E. S. xxxv. 279; L. T. R. i. 38; ii. 23; vii. 49, 61; Adams, 384. I am not quite clear where the original pit stood. Stowe puts on the right hand as you go down Whitehall 'diuers fayre Tennis courtes, bowling allies, and a Cocke-pit, al built by King Henry the eight'. Wyngaerde and Agas show various buildings here, of which one in Agas is of pit shape. Faithorne's map of Westminster (1658), which is said to represent the locality at a much earlier date, shows, just south of the tilt-yard, a quadrangle divided off from the road by a low boundary wall, with buildings all round it and an angled building in the midst. This must I think be the Cockpit, and some of the buildings round it the lodgings which also bore that name and were occupied by the Princess Elizabeth before her marriage (Birch, Charles I, ii. 213) and by Lady Somerset in 1615 (Rutland MSS. i. 448). Here presumably provision for Cockpit was made for James in 1604 (cf. p. 53), and Henry and Elizabeth saw plays in 1608-13 (App. B). But I doubt whether this is the Cockpit shown in Fisher's Restoration plan of Whitehall and in an engraving, probably from a seventeenth-century drawing, reproduced in L. T. R. ii. 23, and Adams, 407. This was square externally, and apparently stood farther west than Faithorne's from the line of the tilt-yard, at the extreme north-west angle of the palace buildings where they jutted into St. James's Park. I think Adams is clearly right in identifying this building with the little theatre a plan of which by Inigo Jones was published from a Worcester College MS. by H. Bell in Architectural Record (1913), 262 (cf. p. 234). Adams further identifies it with a 'new theatre at Whitehall' opened about 1632, no doubt to replace the old Cockpit. If so, Faithorne is clearly out of date. This later Cockpit was on the site of the present Treasury buildings, and the locality long continued to bear its name. Treasury letters were dated from the Cockpit, and the King's speech is said to have been rehearsed there as late as 1806. The passage leading from Whitehall to the Treasury is still called the Cockpit passage. A quite distinct cockpit near Birdcage Walk is marked by the extant Cockpit Steps. It existed by 1720 and was destroyed in 1816. Whether the angled building shown in this direction by Wyngaerde can represent it, or a predecessor, I do not know.

[689] Cf. App. B.

[690] There may have been special reasons why the Chapel only got £15 for two plays in 1583-4, Oxford's £6 13s. 4d. for a play in 1584-5, the Queen's £20 for three plays in 1587-8, and the Chapel £5 for a 'showe' in 1600-1. The accounts for 1605-6 seem to point to an unsuccessful attempt to establish a flat rate of £5 for a 'rewarde' and £3 6s. 8d. for a 'more rewarde', for plays before James and Henry alike. The payments of 17 May 1615 of £43 6s. 8d. for six plays before 'his highnes' (which in these accounts generally means the Prince) perhaps really represent one play before James and five before Charles.

[691] Henry's accounts for 1610-12 (Cunningham, xiii) include payments for making ready the Cockpit for plays, and rewards to musicians and a juggler, but none for players; but Elizabeth lost a play in a wager in 1612, and Anne paid for two plays at Somerset House in 1615. The only play recorded by the Treasurer of the Chamber as specially before Anne (10 Dec. 1604) was paid for at £10. Naturally she was present at plays entered as before the King or Prince, and in 1612 plays paid for at the King's rate seem in fact to have been shown before Anne and Henry in his absence (cf. App. B).

[692] The £10 fee continued to be paid under Charles I, but by 1630-1 the players had established a claim to an additional £10 if their service at court lost them a day at the theatre, owing to a journey to Hampton Court or Richmond or an occasional performance or rehearsal at Whitehall in the day-time. During 1636-7, however, the theatres were closed for plague (M. S. C. i. 391), and the King's men had an allowance of £20 a week to maintain them near the court (S. P. D. Car. I, cccxxxvii. 33), and did not get the extra £10 a play; cf. E. Law, More about Shakespeare Forgeries, 37, and the extracts from the Lord Chamberlain's Records in C. C. Stopes, Shakespeare's Fellows and Followers (Jahrbuch, xlvi. 92).

[693] Cf. ch. ii, p. 66.

[694] The documents are printed by Cunningham, xxiv, and by Law, More, 39, 71, who gives the warrant more fully. They were removed by Cunningham from the Audit Office, and when returned to the Record Office were classed in error as papers subsidiary to the Revels Accounts, instead of to those of the Treasurer of the Chamber. But Law, More, 61, successfully vindicates their authenticity, and I may add that the dockets of Chamberlain's warrants for other years (Jahrbuch, xlvi. 94) refer to schedules now lost, and that a schedule of the plays of the King's men for 1638-9 was facsimiled from a private manuscript by G. R. Wright in Brit. Arch. Ass. Journal, xvi. 275, 344 (1860), and in his Archaeologic and Historic Fragments (1887). In this the claims for 'our day lost' are clearly specified.

[695] The schedule attached to a warrant of 1633 (Jahrbuch, xlvi. 97) appears to have been a bill signed by the Master of the Revels.

[696] Greg, Henslowe Papers, 109; but his note is a slip.

[697] Cf. ch. xiii (Chamberlain's).

[698] Sydney Papers, ii. 86 (30 Jan. 1598), 'My Lord Compton, my Lord Cobham, Sir Walter Rawley, my Lord Southampton, doe severally feast Mr. Secretary before he depart, and have plaies and banquets. My Lady Darby, my Lady Walsingham, Mrs. Anne Russell, are of the company, and my Lady Rawley'; ii. 90 (15 Feb. 1598), 'Sir Gilley Meiricke made at Essex House yesternight a very great supper. There were at yt, my Ladys Lester, Northumberland, Bedford, Essex, Rich; and my Lordes of Essex, Rutland, Monjoy, and others. They had 2 plaies, which kept them up till 1 a clocke after midnight'; ii. 175 (8 March 1600), 'All this Weeke the Lords haue bene in London, and past away the Tyme in Feasting and Plaies; for Vereiken dined vpon Wednesday, with my Lord Treasurer, who made hym a Roiall Dinner; vpon Thursday my Lord Chamberlain feasted hym, and made hym very great, and a delicate Dinner, and there in the After Noone his Plaiers acted, before Vereiken, Sir John Old Castell, to his Great Contentment'. It seems that, for their patron, the Chamberlain's men would give up an afternoon.

[699] S. P. D. Jac. I, xix. 12 (1606); Birch, i. 243; Winwood, iii. 461. A gallant might also have his private play at night in a tavern; cf. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe (1599, Works, iii. 148), 'To London againe he will, to reuell it, and haue two playes in one night, inuite all the Poets and Musitions to his chamber the next morning'; A Mad World, my Masters, v. i. 78, 'a right Mitre supper;—a play and all'.

[700] Aphrodysial, v. 5, cited by Reynolds, Percy, 258.

[701] Machyn, 222, 290, notes a play, either in the Guildhall or in that of the Lord Mayor's company, on 6 Jan. 1560, and a play at the Barber Surgeons' feast on 10 Aug. 1562. The Pewterers collected 'playe pence' at their 'yemandrie feast' about 1563 (C. Welch, Pewterers, i. 233). Recorder Fleetwood saw a play at a dinner with the outgoing sheriffs on 29 Sept. 1575 (Hatfield MSS. ii. 116; dated 1573 in error in Murdin, ii. 259, and Nichols, Eliz. i. 357).

[702] They are fully treated for the sixteenth century by F. S. Boas, University Drama in the Tudor Age (1914), and more briefly for the whole period, with a valuable bibliography, by the same writer, in C. H. vi. 293. I have recorded the extant plays, English and Latin, in App. K.

[703] Ch. xxiii, s.v. Beaumont; Inderwick, Inner Temple Records, i. lxv, 219; ii. xlix, 23 sqq., 56, 64. A payment of 20s. 'to the players' at the Christmas of 1615 was probably, in view of the amount, for musicians. The earlier account-books are not preserved. On the plays, not necessarily professional, of the 1561-2 Christmas, cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Brooke.

[704] Gesta Grayorum (M. S. R.), 22, 23. R. J. Fletcher, The Pension Book of Gray's Inn (1901), prints entries of payments for 'the play at Shrove-tyde' 1581, of which nothing more is known, and 'the play in Michaelmas terme' and 'the Tragedie' in 1587-8, in which year the Inn gave Catiline at home before Lord Burghley on 16 Jan. (M. S. C. i. 179) and The Misfortunes of Arthur at court on 28 Feb. Gascoigne's Supposes and Jocasta were both produced at Gray's Inn in 1566-7. The Inn was to have entertained the Duke of Bracciano with 'shewes' at Christmas 1600-1, but he left too soon (Chamberlain, 99; Camden (tr.), 535).

[705] B. Rudyerd, Memoirs, 12, 13. The ascription of these revels to 'the Christmas of 1599' in Mediaeval Stage, i. 416, is an error; cf. p. 169.

[706] Manningham, 18.

[707] J. D. Walker, Black Books of Lincoln's Inn, i. xxxiii, 344, 348, 352, 362, 374, 418; ii. 55. It was ordered on 2 Feb. 1565 that 'Mʳ Edwards shall have in reward liijˢ, iiijᵈ for his plee, and his hussher xˢ, and xˢ more to the children that pleed' (in margin, 'Children of the Quenes Chappell'). The accounts of 1564-5, however, show £1 18s. 2d. for a supper and for staff torches, clubs, and other necessaries for the play, and £1 as reward for the boys; those of 1565-6 £2 to the boys of the Queen's chapel and their master for a play at the Purification; those of 1569-70 £1 'lusoribus' of 'Lord Roche' at the Purification; those of 1579-80 £3 6s. 8d. on 9 Feb. 'to Mʳ Ferrand [Farrant] one of the Queen's chaplains pro commedia'. On 12 May 1598, a levy was made for the expenses of 'the gentlemen that were actors in the matter of the shew the last Christmas'. No more is known of this show. On the Inns of Court Christmases generally cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 413.

[708] The Westminster accounts of 1564-5 (Murray, ii. 168) include 'at yᵉ rehersing before Sir Thomas Benger for pinnes and sugar candee viᵈ' and 'the second tyme att the playing of Heautonti, for pinnes halfe a thousand viᵈ', but there is nothing to suggest that any play but Miles Gloriosus was given before the Queen. The Revels Accounts (Feuillerat, Eliz. 145, 176, 179, 238, 277, 325, &c.) have (1571-2), 'playes ... chosen owte of many and ffownde to be the best that then were to be had, the same also being often pervsed, & necessarely corrected & amended (by all thafforesaide officers)'; (1572-3), 'muzitians that plaide at the proof of Duttons play' ... 'rushes in the hall & in the greate chambere where the workes were doone & the playes rezited'; (1574-5) 'at Wynsor ... for peruzing and reformyng of Farrantes playe' ... 'wheare my Lord of Leicesters menne showed theier matter of Panecia' ... 'where my Lord Clyntons players rehearsed a matter called Pretestus', &c.; (1576-7), 'To Whitehall and back againe to recyte before my Lord Chamberleyn' ... 'to Sᵗ Johns ... for the play of Cutwell'; (1579-80) 'Thinges ... brought into the Masters Lodginge for the rehearsall of sondrie playes to make choise of dyvers of them for her maiestie', &c., &c.

[709] Machyn, 221.

[710] Cf. chh. xxiii, xxiv, s.vv. Chettle (1602); Dekker, Fortunatus, Phaethon; the anonymous Histriomastix. The prints of several plays contain special court prologues or epilogues, e.g. Lyly's Campaspe and Sapho and Phaon.

[711] Buggin's Revels memorandum of 1573 (Tudor Revels, 33) indicates that his proposed Serjeant 'is with the master and the reast of the officers to be at the rehersall of playes'.

[712] Feuillerat, Eliz. 326 (1579-80, 50 days), 337 (1580-1, 70 days), table ii (1581-2, 44 days), 352 (1582-3, 62 days), table iii (1583-4, 56 days), 368 (1584-5, 66 days), 389 (1587-8, 64 days; 1588-9, 57 days). The commission (App. D, No. lvi) authorized the Master to command players 'to appear before him with all suche plaies tragedies comedies or showes as they shall haue in readines or meane to sett forth and them to presente and recite before our said servant or his sufficient deputie'.

[713] Feuillerat, Eliz. 145, 193, 286, 320. In 1571-2 all the plays were 'throwghly apparelled and ffurnished'; in 1573-4 all were 'fytted and ffurnyshed with the store of thoffice and with the woorkmanshipp and provisions herein expressed'; in 1578-9 the clerk seems to distinguish between plays furnished with 'sondrey', 'some', 'manie', and 'verie manie' things; in 1579-80 seven out of nine plays were 'wholie furnyshed in this offyce', and of the others one had 'sondrie' and one 'many' things; cf. Graves, 83.

[714] Cf. ch. iii, p. 93.

[715] Feuillerat, Eliz. 354, 370, 381, 391; cf. ch. iii, p. 89.

[716] Ibid. 140, 174, 236, 320, 336, 349 (gloves); 338 (cradle); 205 (close-stool). The Westminster boys in 1565 found their own 'sugar candee', 'comfetts', and 'butterd beere for yᵉ children being horse' (Murray, ii. 168).

[717] Feuillerat, Eliz. 337.

[718] Tarlton, 10, records a jest, 'Tarlton having plaied before the queen till one a clock at midnight'. De Silva describes entertainments of Elizabeth in private houses early in the reign which ended at 1.30 and 2 a.m. (ch. v, pp. 161, 162). Under James, a play on 7 Jan. 1610, began at 10 p.m. (Arch. xii. 268).

[719] Feuillerat, Eliz. 159, 202, 216, 300, 353, 368, &c. We hear of 'high', 'vice', 'stock', 'pricke', 'plate', and 'hand' candlesticks.

[720] Cunningham, 214 (1611-12), 'For a musik house dore in the hall and a doore for the musik house in the Bancketing house with lockes'; possibly that in the hall was used for plays rather than masks.

[721] Cf. App. B and the Works Account of 'Chardges done for the revells in the hall' at Shrovetide 1568 in Feuillerat, Eliz. 120. But the Revels themselves had 'to enlardge the scaffolde in the hall' in 1579-80 (327).

[722] Cf. ch. ii, p. 34.

[723] On the woodcut in Three Lords and Three Ladies of London (1590), cf. Bibl. Note to ch. xviii.

[724] Cf. App. A.

[725] Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, ii. 267 (from account of Matthew Stokys in Harl. MS. 7037 (Baker MS. 10)); 'For the hearing and playing whereof was made, by her highness surveyor and at her own cost, in the body of the church, a great stage containing the breadth of the church from the one side to the other, that the chapels might serve for houses. In the length it ran two of the lower chapels full, with the pillars on a side. Upon the south wall was hanged a cloth of state, with the appurtenances and half path, for her majesty. In the rood loft, another stage for ladies and gentlewomen to stand on. And the two lower tables, under the said rood loft, were greatly enlarged and railed for the choice officers of the court. There was, before her majesty's coming, made in the King's College hall, a great stage. But, because it was judged by divers to be too little, and too close for her highness and her company, and also far from her lodging, it was taken down. When all things were ready for the plays, the Lord Chamberlain with Mr. Secretary came in, bringing a multitude of the guard with them, having every man in his hand a torch-staff for the lights of the play (for no other lights were occupied) and would not suffer any to stand upon the stage, save a very few upon the north side. And the guard stood upon the ground by the stage side, holding their lights. From the quire door unto the stage was made as 'twere a bridge, railed on both sides, for the queen's grace to go to the stage; which was straitly kept.' This account is also in Nichols, Eliz. i. 151. In his first edition Nichols (iii. 27) also gave an account by Nicholas Robinson, which adds the detail that the stage was 'structura quaedam ex crassioribus asseribus altitudine pedum quinque'; cf. also Boas, 91.

[726] Cf. ch. xii and App. K.

[727] Plummer, 123 (from Bereblock's account): 'Primo ibi ab ingenti solido pariete patefacto aditu proscenium insigne fuit, ponsque ab eo ligneus pensilis, sublicis impositus, parvo et perpolito tractu per transversos gradus ad magnam Collegii aulam protrahitur; festa fronde coelato pictoque umbraculo exornatur, ut per eum, sine motu et perturbatione prementis vulgi, regina posset, quasi aequabili gressu, ad praeparata spectacula contendere. Erat aula laqueari aurato, et picto arcuatoque introrsus tecto, granditate ac superbia sua veteris Romani palatii amplitudinem, et magnificentia imaginem antiquitatis diceres imitari. Parte illius superiori, qua occidentem respicit, theatrum excitatur magnum et erectum, gradibusque multis excelsum. Iuxta omnes parietes podia et pegmata extructa sunt, subsellia eisdem superiora fuerunt multorum fastigiorum, unde viri illustres ac matronae suspicerentur, et populus circumcirca ludos prospicere potuit. Lucernae, lichni, candelaeque ardentes clarissimam ibi lucem fecerunt. Tot luminaribus, ramulis ac orbibus divisis, totque passim funalibus, inaequali splendore, incertam praebentibus lucem, splendebat locus, ut et instar diei micare, et spectaculorum claritatem adiuvare candore summo visa sint. Ex utroque scenae latere comoedis ac personatis magnifica palatia, aedesque apparatissimae extruuntur. Sublime fixa sella fuit, pulvinaribus ac tapetiis ornata, aureoque umbraculo operta, Reginae destinatus locus erat'; cf. Boas, 99.

[728] I think Feuillerat, M. P. 73, must be misled by the Cambridge analogy and the use of the term 'proscenium' in supposing the 'pons' to have been within the auditorium and the state on the stage. The 'proscenium' was doubtless the 'porch' taken down after the visit (Boas, 106). The exterior of the hall has been refaced since 1566, but Dr. Boas tells me that during some recent alterations an unexplained aperture was traceable from within.

[729] Cf. ch. iv.

[730] Cf. p. 234.

[731] Jusserand, Shakespeare in France (tr.), 93, pl. xi.

[732] L. T. R. vii. 41. In The Times for 3 Dec. 1917 Mr. Law has a similar reconstruction of the arrangements at Hampton Court, wherein he assigns the stage to a point before the screens, with the gallery over the screens for 'upper chamber scenes', rooms behind the screens for tiring-houses, and a players' supper room, and the Watching Chamber for rehearsals. But again he produces no evidence.

[733] Cf. ch. xix.

[734] The expenses of 1578-9 (vide infra) included the 'mending' of houses. But I agree, broadly, with the argument of Graves, 53, that scenery for a Court performance had to be either new or renewed.

[735] In 1563-5, 'canvas to couer diuers townes and howsses and other devisses and clowds' (Feuillerat, Eliz. 116); in 1571-2, 'sundry Tragedies Playes Maskes and sportes with their apte howses of paynted canvas' (129); in 1572-3, 'sparres to make frames for the players howses' (175); in 1573-4, 'hoopes for tharbour and topp of an howse' ... 'pynnes styf and great for paynted clothes' ... 'nayles to strayne the canvas' ... 'canvas to paynte for howses for the players and for other properties as monsters, greate hollow trees and suche other' ... 'cariage for the fframes for the howses that served in the playes' ... 'iij elme boordes and vij ledges for the frames for the players' ... 'cariage of fframes and painted clothes for the players howses' (197, 201, 203, 204, 218); in 1574-5, 'canvas to make frenge for the players howse' (244); in 1576-7, 'cariadge ... of a paynted cloth and two frames' (266); in 1587-9, 'timber bordes and workmanshipp in mending and setting vp of the houses by greate' (390); in 1587-8 'paynters for ... clothe for howses' (381); in 1579-80, 'ffurre poles to make rayles for the battlementes and to make the prison for my Lord of Warwickes men' (327).

[736] Feuillerat, M. P. 69, calculates that enough cloth was painted in 1580-1, 1582-3, and 1584-5 to allow of about 16 square yards for every house or other décor used.

[737] Feuillerat, Eliz. 134.

[738] Ibid. 176.

[739] Ibid. 119.

[740] Ibid. 320.

[741] Ibid. 336.

[742] Ibid. 349.

[743] Ibid. 365.

[744] In 1571-2, 'curtyn ringes' (Feuillerat, Eliz. 140); in 1573-4, 'poles and shivers for draft of the curtins before the senat howse ... curtyn ringes ... edging the curtins with ffrenge ... tape and corde for the same' (200); in 1576-7, 'a lyne to draw a curteyne' (275); in 1580-1, a purchase of 8 ells of orange taffeta double sarcenet at 10s an ell for a curtain for a play (338); in 1584-5 'one greate curteyne' of sarcenet for Phillyda and Corin (365).

[745] Cf. ch. xix.

[746] In 1572-3, 'an awlter for Theagines' (Feuillerat, Eliz. 175); in 1573-4, 'lathes for the hollo tree' ... 'one baskett with iiij eares to hang Dylligence in the play of Perobia ... a iebbett to hang vp Diligence' ... 'hoopes for tharbour' (199, 200, 203); in 1578-9 'a rope, a pulley, a basket' (296); in 1584-5, a well for Five Plays in One (365). For Cutwell, rehearsed but not performed in 1576-7 (277), 'the partes of yᵉ well counterfeit' were brought from the Bell to St. John's.

[747] In 1572-3, 'a tree of holly for the Duttons playe ... holly for the forest ... tymber for the forest ... provizion and cariage of trees and other things to the Coorte for a wildernesse in a playe' (Feuillerat, Eliz. 175, 180); in 1573-4, 'holly and ivye for the play of Predor' (203); in 1574-5, 'moss and styckes' and holly and ivy (239, 244).

[748] Feuillerat, Eliz. 306. There were rocks or mountains also in 1574-5, 1579-80, and 1584-5 (244, 320, 365).

[749] Ibid. 240. It was an old device. Graves, 27, quotes Palsgrave, Acolastus (1540), 'in stage-playes, when some god or some saynt made to appeare forth of a cloude; and succoureth the parties which seemed to be towardes some great danger, through the Soudans crueltie'.

[750] 'Andramedas picture' ... 'Benbow for playing in the monster' ... 'canvas for a monster' ... 'hoopes for the monster' (ibid. 175, 176, 181).

[751] Ibid. 265.

[752] Ibid. 140, 141. The 'hunters that made the crye after the fox (let loose in the Coorte) with their howndes, hornes, and hallowing' had already been a feature of Edwardes' Palaemon and Arcite at Oxford in 1566.

[753] Feuillerat, M. P. 57, gives an excellent summary of the data in the Accounts, but his schedule of properties does not attempt to disentangle masks and plays. The latter were liberally supplied. The Italians at Reading and Windsor during the progress of 1574, for example, were furnished with 'golde lether for cronetes', 'shepherdes hookes', 'lam-skynnes for shepperds', 'arrowes for nymphes', 'a syth for Saturne', 'iij deveils cotes and heades and one olde mannes fries cote' (Feuillerat, Eliz. 227). Probably the apparel used on the stage was of less costly materials than that worn by lords and ladies in masks, but it was doubtless calculated to present the same glittering effect.

[754] Cf. p. 226, and Plummer (from Bereblock), 138, 'Fiunt igitur in silvis septa marmorea' with three altars.

[755] I. Wake, Rex Platonicus sive Musae Regnantes (1607), 46, 79, 112, 134; Nichols, i. 530 (from account, probably by Philip Stringer, in Harl. MS. 7044, f. 201). Wake thus describes the hall: 'Partem Aulae superiorem occupavit Scena, cuius Proscenium molliter declive (quod actorum egressui, quasi e monte descendentium, multum attulit dignitatis) in planitiem desinebat. Peripetasmata scenicaque habitacula, machinis ita artificiose ad omnium locorum rerumque varietatem apparata, ut non modo pro singulorum indies spectaculorum, sed etiam pro Scenarum una eademque fabula diversitate subito (ad stuporem omnium) compareret nova totius theatralis fabricae facies.... Media cavea thronus Augustalis cancellis cinctus Principibus erigitur, quem utrinque optimatum stationes communiunt: reliquum inter thronum et theatrum interstitium Heroinarum Gynaeceum est paulo depressius.' In Annus Recurrens the scene was a zodiac with a sun moving by artifice, and the play lasted from the Ram to the Fishes. Stringer adds the details about the turning pillars, the false wall, and the participation of Jones.

[756] Pipe Office, Declared Accounts (Revels), 2805.

[757] Thorndike, 191.

[758] Cf. p. 217.

[759] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 206.

[760] Horace, De Arte Poetica, 343:

Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci,

lectorem delectando pariterque monendo.

Horace's treatise was first translated into English by Thomas Drant in 1567; cf. O. L. Jiriczek, Der Elisabethanische Horaz (1911, Sh.-Jahrbuch, xlvii. 42).

[761] Plutarch, Quomodo adolescens poetas audire debet, c. xii.

[762] Donatus (ed. Wessner, i. 22), Excerpta de Comoedia; cf. Hamlet, III. ii. 23, also Gosson's criticism of Lodge's scholarship on this point in App. C, No. xxx.

[763] W. H. Woodward, Studies in Education during the Age of the Renaissance, 218; C. H. Herford, Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century, 101.

[764] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 216.

[765] Extract in App. C, No. v. Symmes, 31, cites Peter Martyr Vermigli as representing the same point of view, but the passage on plays in his In librum Iudicum Commentarii (1563), c. 14, reproduced in his Loci Communes (1563), Classis ii, c. 12, is not very lucid.

[766] J. E. Gillet (M. L. A. xxxiv. 465), citing e.g. an utterance of 1530, 'Et ego non illibenter viderem gesta Christi in scholis puerorum ludis seu comoediis latine et germanice rite ac pure compositis repraesentari propter rei memoriam et affectum iunioribus augendum'.

[767] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 111.

[768] Robert Laneham's Letter (ed. Furnivall), 27.

[769] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 224, 446.

[770] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 222. The passage quoted is from the Epistel Exhortatorye of an Inglyshe Christian (1544), written under the pseudonym of Henry Stalbridge. Foxe, Book of Martyrs, vi. 57, says of Bishop Gardiner, 'He thwarteth and wrangleth much against players, printers, preachers. And no marvel why: for he seeth these three things to be set up of God, as a triple bulwark against the triple crown of the Pope to bring him down; as, God be praised, they have done meetly well already.'

[771] Cf. ch. v.

[772] Strype, Annals, 1. ii. 436, 'Sithence the comynge and reigne of our most soveraigne and dear lady quene Elizabeth, by the onely preachers and scaffold players of this newe religion, all thinges are turned up-side downe, and notwithstandinge the quenes majesties proclamations most godly made to the contrarye, and her vertuous example of lyvinge, sufficyent to move the hearts of all obedyent subjects to the due service and honour of God.' If a proclamation as to plays is meant, it must be the earlier one of 8 April 1559, as the speech was probably delivered in the debate on the second reading of the Act of Uniformity on 26 April. Strype, 1. i. 109, points out that it is definitely assigned by Cotton MS. Vesp. D. 18, to Feckenham, and that Burnet's ascription to Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, which has been followed by Collier, i. 168, and others, rests on a mistaken note by a later hand on a copy in a C. C. C. C. Synodalia MS.

[773] V. P. vii. 65, 71, 80.

[774] Sp. P. i. 62 (29 April 1559), 'She was very emphatic in saying that she wished to punish severely certain persons who had represented some comedies in which your Majesty was taken off. I passed it by, and said that these were matter of less importance than the others, although both in jest and earnest more respect ought to be paid to so great a prince as your Majesty, and I knew that a member of her Council had given the arguments to construct these comedies, which is true, for Cecil gave them, as indeed she partly admitted to me.'

[775] Sp. P. i. 247. England and Protestantism got as good as they gave. Bohun, 99, records how, about 1560-2, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was made the butt of French court jesters and comedians. Mary of Scotland was hardly persuaded, in 1565, to punish some Catholics who had made a play against the ministers, with a mock baptism of a cat in it (Randolph to Cecil, in Wright, Eliz. i. 190).

[776] Cf. ch. v.

[777] Cf. ch. xxii.

[778] Calvin, Opera, xxi. 207 (Annales Calviniani), gives prohibitions made under Farel's influence in 1537; for earlier records, cf. E. Doumergue, Jean Calvin, iii. 579; H. D. Foster, Geneva before Calvin in American Hist. Review, viii. 231.

[779] A. L. Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs dans les pays de langue française, i. 195, 'Christianum alienum oportet a bachanalibus quae gentium more celebrantur, et ab hypocrisi Iudaica in ieiuniis et aliis quae non directore spiritu fiunt: ac cavere oportet a simulachris quam maxime.' Possibly, however, 'simulachra' means 'images' rather than 'disguisings'.

[780] Calvin, Opera, xᵃ. 5, 16.

[781] The proceedings against Mme Françoise Perrin for allowing a dance in her house are described in A. Roget, Hist. du Peuple de Genève, ii. 225. In 1550 the council resolved (Calvin, Opera, xxi. 460), 'Item des ordonnances des dances qu'elles ne soyent point admoindries mais que l'on ne soufre pas cela. Surquoy est arreste que soyent faictes cries a voix de trompe que nulz naye a danser ny chanter chansons deshonnestes ny dancer en façon que soit: sur poienne de estre mis troys iours en prison en pain et eaue et de soixante sols pour une chescune foy la moytie applique a l'hospital et laultre moytie a la court'. In 1557 (Opera, xxi. 662) persons were brought before the consistory on an accusation of 'insolences faictes a un royaulme'. They had a cake, and in one girl's slice 'y mirent ung grain de genievre et pour ce lappellerent Royne et crierent a aulte voix la Royne boit'.

[782] Calvin, Opera, xxi. 379; cf. Roget, ii. 235.

[783] Calvin, Opera, xxi. 382; cf. Roget, ii. 238, 'Aulcungs joueurs des antiques et puissance de Hercules ont prié que plaise a MM. de les laisser jouer de bonne grâce la bataille des Mores et puissance de Harodes et aultres antiques héros. Arresté pour obvier scandalle que ne doibgent point jouer, mes que demain se doibgent retirer.' Cf. the notices of the Hercules performances at Paris in 1572 and at Utrecht in 1586 (ch. xiii, s.v. Leicester's), and p. 152, n. 1, for an early Italian parallel.

[784] Calvin, Opera, xxi. 381-4; cf. Roget, ii. 236; Doumergue, iii. 579; W. Walker, John Calvin, 298.

[785] Calvin, Ep. 800 (Opera, xii. 347), '... Nihil hic habemus novi, nisi quod secunda comedia iam cuditur. Cuius actionem testati sumus nobis minime probari. Pugnare tamen ad extremum noluimus, quia periculum erat ne elevaremus nostram autoritatem, si pertinaciter repugnando tandem vinceremur. Video non posse negari omnia oblectamenta. Itaque mihi satis est si hoc, quod non est adeo vitiosum, indulgeri sibi intelligant, sed nobis invitis....' This was on 3 June. Ep. 807 (Opera, xii. 355), of 4 July, describes the dissensions amongst the ministers, and adds, 'Auditis fratribus, respondi multas ob causas nobis non videri expedire ut agerentur, et simul causas exposui; nos tamen nolle contendere, si senatus contenderet ... nunc ludi aguntur'.

[786] Calvin, Ep. 802 (Opera, xii. 351) 'Farellus Calvino ... Isti qui tam delectantur ludis, utinam non serio dolore torqueantur. Timendum est, ne qui alienis personis oblectantur quum propriam in Christo debeant sustinere in omni genere officiorum, ne ferre cogantur non personatos, qui fingunt nocere, sed qui nimis vere afflictent et angant. Sed quis tandem perfectam ... habebit plebem? Utinam in malis personati tandem essent, nec aliquid ipsi facerent, tantum aliorum peccata repraesentarent ... omnes ea vitarent, in bonis veri essent actores, imo factores.... 16 Iunii, 1546.'

[787] Calvin, Sermo, cxxvi (Opera, xxviii. 18), 'Ainsi donc ce n'est point sans cause que ceste loy a esté mise; et ceux qui prennent plaisir à se desguiser, despittent Dieu: comme en ces masques, et en ces momons, quand les femmes s'accoustrent en hommes, et les hommes en femmes, ainsi qu'on en fait: et qu'adviendra-t-il? Encores qu'il n'y eust point nulle mauvaise queue, la chose en soy est desplaisante à Dieu: nous oyons ce qui en est ici prononcé: Quiconques le fait, est en abomination.' Other sermons, e.g. Sermo lvii, condemn dances and jeux generally, without any special stress on plays; cf. P. Lobstein, Die Ethik Calvins, 113.

[788] Calvin, Opera, xxi. 385.

[789] Calvin, Opera, xxi. 406, 450, 684, 734; Roget, ii. 238, 243; iii. 139; vi. 192; Doumergue, iii. 579, sqq.

[790] Discipline des Églises Réformées, ch. xiv, art. 28 (Bulletin de la Soc. de l'Hist, du Protestantisme, xxxv. 211), 'Il ne sera aussi permis aux fidèles d'assister aux comédies, tragédies, farces, moralités et autres jeux, joués en public ou en particulier, vu que de tout temps cela a été défendu entre chrétiens, comme apportant corruption de bonnes mœurs, mais surtout quand l'Écriture sainte est profanée; néanmoins, quand, dans un collège, il sera trouvé utile à la jeunesse de représenter quelque histoire, on la pourra tolérer pourvu qu'elle ne soit comprise en l'Écriture sainte, qui n'est pas donnée pour être jouée, mais purement prêchée, et aussi que cela se fasse rarement et par l'avis du Colloque qui en verra la composition.' The original decree of the Synod of Poitiers in 1560, to which this was an addition, only laid down that 'les momeries et batelleries ne seront point souffertes, ni faire le Roi boit, ni le Mardi gras'.

[791] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Calfhill, for Walter Haddon's somewhat slighting reference to his theatri celebritas.

[792] Parker Correspondence (Parker Soc.), 226.

[793] Strype, Annals (1824), III. i. 496. Smith had said, 'Si illud verum sit quod auditione accepi, istius modi certe ludos diris devoveo et actores et spectatores'.

[794] I am not writing the history of the Oxford stage, but it is pertinent to note that a statute of 1584, just as Case was writing, had excluded common stage-plays from the University, both on grounds of health and economy, and that 'the younger sort ... may not be spectatours of so many lewde and evill sports as in them are practised' (Boas, 225).

[795] Northbrooke, 103. Stubbes took the same line in the Preface to his first edition, but afterwards cancelled the passage.

[796] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 18.

[797] Gosson, P. C. 195.

[798] Gosson, P. C. 169.

[799] Gosson, P. C. 197.

[800] Gosson, P. C. 188; Munday, 145.

[801] A. Y. L. III. iii. 17.

[802] Northbrooke, 92; Munday, 144; Stubbes, 140.

[803] Gosson, S. A. 35; P. C. 215; Munday, 139.

[804] Northbrooke, 92; Stockwood, 23; Munday, 128; Field, Epistle.

[805] White, 46; Gosson, P. C. 215.

[806] Stubbes, 180, speaks of serious accidents at theatres due to panic at an earthquake, which must be that of 6 April 1580; but the account published at the time (cf. App. C, No. xxv) makes no reference to theatres, although it does, oddly enough, record that the only deaths were those of two children who were listening to a sermon in Christ Church, Newgate.

[807] The fall of the Paris Garden bear-baiting house on 13 January 1583 led John Field, in his A Godly Exhortation (1583) on that event, which is closely related to the anti-stage literature, to anticipate a similar fate for the theatres. The Puritans should have taken to heart the wise comment of Sir Thomas More on a similar occasion (cf. ch. xvi, s.v. Hope).

[808] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Marlowe, Dr. Faustus.

[809] Cf. App. C, Nos. iv, ix, x, xiv, xix. Something might be added from the prefaces of the Senecan translators (cf. ch. xxiii).

[810] Gosson, P. C. 201.

[811] Gosson, P. C. 203.

[812] Northbrooke, 92; Munday, 139; Stubbes, 143.

[813] Northbrooke, 92; cf. Stubbes, 144.

[814] Munday, 150.

[815] Gosson, P. C. 182; Munday, 147.

[816] Gosson, S. A. 37.

[817] Cf. ch. ix and App. C, No. xl.

[818] B. Fair, i. 2, 3, 6; iii. 2, 6; iv. 1, 6; v. 5; cf. Jonson's Epigr. lxxv. On Lippe the Teacher. I suppose that the treatise on the question of sex-apparel which Selden sent to Jonson in 1616 (App. C, No. lxii) was meant to furnish annotations for B. Fair.

[819] Heywood, 24.

[820] Heywood, 43, 61.

[821] Cf. App. J.

[822] Gosson, P. C. 211.

[823] Henslowe, i. 136, records a payment of 10s. by the Admiral's in May 1601, 'to geatte the boye into the ospetalle which was hurt at the Fortewne'. At St. James, Clerkenwell, was buried on 26 May 1613 (Harl. Soc. xvii. 123) 'John Brittine yᵗ was killed with a fall in the Pley howse'. There was a shooting accident also in an Admiral's play of 1587; cf. ch. xiii.

[824] Cf. ch. xviii.

[825] One of the charges brought against the Venetian ambassador Foscarini on his return to Venice in 1616 was that he had tried to seduce the penitent of an English religious attached to the embassy, 'sometimes attending the public comedies and standing among the people on the chance of seeing her' (Venetian Papers, xiv. 593). About 1594 a diamond stolen from the loot of a Spanish carrack was bought by some goldsmiths from a mariner whom they met by chance 'at a play in the theatre at Shoreditch', and who afterwards showed them the diamond in Finsbury Fields (Cecil Papers, vii. 504).

[826] Cf. ch. xvi, s.v. Bull.

[827] In Stukeley, 610, the hero owes the bailiff of Finsbury, 'for frays and bloodshed in the Theatre fields, five marks'. The Middlesex justices had to deal with cases of stealing a purse at the Curtain in 1600, of a 'notable outrage' at the Red Bull in 1610, of abusing gentlemen at the Fortune in 1611, of stealing a purse at the Red Bull in 1613, and of stabbing at the Fortune in 1613 (Middlesex County Records, i. 205, 217, 259; ii. xlvii, 64, 71, 86, 88). On 7 July 1602 James wrote from Scotland to one James Hudson to intercede with the Council for John Henslay or Henchelawe of Grimsby, who was assaulted by Nicholas Blinstoun or Blunston at a play about the previous Whitsunday (23 May), and slew him (Scottish Papers, ii. 815; Hatfield MSS. xii. 363). Dekker (ii. 326), in Jests to Make you Merrie (1607), gives the private playhouse as the habitat of the 'foist' or pickpocket, and says, 'The times when his skirmishes are hottest, or yᵉ time when they run attilt, is ... a new play'. Again (iii. 158), in The Belman of London (1608), he tells us that rogues haunt playhouses, and (iii. 212) in Lanthorne and Candlelight (1609), 'A foyst nor a nip shall not walke into a fayre or a Play-house, but euerie cracke will cry looke to your purses'.

[828] Divers persons were slain and others hurt and wounded in an attempt to pull down the Cockpit in Drury Lane on Shrove Tuesday 1617 (M. S. C. i. 374); cf. Camden, Annales (4 March 1617), 'Theatrum ludionum nuper erectum in Drury-Lane a furente multitudine diruitur, et apparatus dilaceratur'; John Taylor, Jack a Lent (1620, ed. Hindley), 'Put play houses to the sack and bawdy houses to the spoil'; The Owles Almanack (1618), 9, 'Shroue-tuesday falls on that day, on which the prentices plucked downe the cocke-pit, and on which they did alwayes vse to rifle Madam Leakes house, at the vpper end of Shorditch'. This was not Puritanism, but a traditional Saturnalia of apprentices at Shrovetide; cf. Earle, Microcosmography, char. 64 (A Player), 'Shrove-tuesday he feares as much as the bawdes'; Busino, Anglopotrida (1618, V. P. xv. 246), describing the bands of prentices, 3,000 or 4,000 strong, who on Shrove Tuesday and 1 May do outrages in all directions, especially the suburbs, where they destroy houses of correction; E. Gayton, Festivous Notes upon Don Quixote (1654), 271, 'I have known upon one of these festivals, but especially at Shrove-tide, where the players have been appointed, notwithstanding their bills to the contrary, to act what the major part of the company had a mind to. Sometimes Tamerlane, sometimes Jugurtha, sometimes The Jew of Malta, and sometimes parts of all these; and at last, none of the three taking, they were forced to undress and put off their tragick habits, and conclude the day with The Merry Milkmaides. And unless this were done, and the popular humour satisfied (as sometimes it so fortun'd that the players were refractory), the benches, the tiles, the laths, the stones, oranges, apples, nuts, flew about most liberally; and as there were mechanicks of all professions, who fell every one to his trade, and dissolved a house in an instant, and made a ruin of a stately fabric'.

[829] Most of these letters are printed in Wright, Eliz.; a few are still unprinted among the Lansdowne and Hatfield MSS.; cf. App. D, Nos. xxxv, xxxvii, lxxiv.

[830] Gosson, S. A. 56; P. C. Epistle, 178.

[831] Munday, 128.

[832] Occasionally players were of use as spies. On 30 March 1603 four players gave information of an alleged proclamation of Lord Beauchamp as king by Lord Southampton (Hist. MSS. xiii. 4. 126).

[833] Cf. App. D, Nos. xl, liii, lviii, lxxi, lxxiii, lxxv, lxxxiv, lxxxv, ci, cxiv. The notion of the need of the public, as distinct from that of the Queen, for dramatic recreation gradually makes its appearance (cf. especially App. D, No. cii); but imperial Rome might have taught its lesson of panem et circenses.

[834] Taylor, Wit and Mirth (1629, Hazlitt, Jest Books, iii. 62), burlesques the point of view in a story of the visit of the Queen's ape to Looe in Cornwall. The showman approached the mayor, who did visit and 'put off his hat and made a leg', and there was a proclamation, 'These are to will and require you, and every of you, with your wives and families, that upon the sight hereof, you make your personall appearance before the Queenes Ape, for it is an Ape of ranke and quality, who is to bee practised through her Majesties dominions, that by his long experience amongst her loving subjects, hee may bee the better enabled to doe her majesty service hereafter; and hereof faile you not, as you will answer the contrary'.

[835] App. D, No. liv.

[836] Hawarde, 48, records that in a Star Chamber case of cozening on 18 June 1596 'The Lord Treasurer would haue those yᵗ make the playes to make a comedie hereof, & to acte it with these names'; cf. p. 244. In Hatfield MSS. vii. 270 is a 'lewd saucy letter' of 25 June 1597 from Sir John Hollis to Burghley, who on the last Star Chamber day had pronounced Hollis's great-grandfather 'an abominable usurer, a merchant of broken paper, so hateful and contemptible a creature that the players acted him before the King [Henry VII or VIII] with great applause'. It is printed in H. Walpole, Royal and Noble Authors (ed. Park, ii. 283).

[837] App. C, No. xlv. Was this the Chapel Game of the Cards on 26 Dec. 1582, or was it the play in which Tarlton (cf. ch. xv) glanced at Raleigh as the knave commanding the queen?

[838] These interventions were the Admiral's men in 1600 and for Oxford's and Worcester's men in 1602 (cf. App. D, Nos. cxvii, cxxx).

[839] Aydelotte, 58, misrepresents the Act of 1531 on this point. The clearest proof that the unprotected player was a vagabond is in a Privy Council letter of 30 April 1556 to Lord Shrewsbury (Lodge, i. 260), which, after directing that Sir Francis Leek shall not let his servants travel as players, adds, 'And in case any person shall attempt to set forth these sort of games or pastimes at any time hereafter, contrary to this order; and do wander, for that purpose, abroad in the country; your Lordship shall do well to give the Justices of the Peace in charge to see them apprehended out of hand, and punished as vagabonds, by virtue of the statute made against loitering and idle persons'.

[840] Cf. App. C, s.vv. Gosson (1582), 215; Cox (1591); App. D, No. lxxv (2) (b). An Act of 1552 (5 & 6 Edw. VI, c. 21) required every travelling 'Pedler, Tynker, or Pety Chapman' to have a licence from two justices of the shire in which he resided (Statutes, iv. 155). This was merged in the Act of 1572 (App. D, No. xxiv), but not formally repealed until 1 Jac. I, c. 25, in 1604 (Statutes, iv. 1052).

[841] Procl. 455; cf. Dasent, v. 73; Machyn, 69.

[842] Cf. M. S. C. i. 350; Aydelotte, 14. Procl. 273 laid down (1545) 'that noe person of what estate, degree or condicion soever he be, doe in any wise hereafter name or avowe any man to be his servant, unles he be his houshold servant, or his bailiffe or keeper, or such other as he may keepe and retayne by the lawes and statutes of this realme, or be retayned by the kings maiestys licence' (Hazlitt, E. D. S. 7). But the laws against retainers had fallen into desuetude again by 1572; cf. App. D, No. xix.

[843] Scargill-Bird³, 80; W. R. Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, ii. 1. 55; H. Hall, Studies in English Official Historical Documents, 263; M. S. C. i. 260. The stages of a patent, as settled by 27 Hen. VIII, c. 11 (1535), were (a) a Petition setting out the grant desired, and (b) a direction by the Sovereign for the preparation of (c) a King's Bill. In this the wording of the intended patent was settled, and this wording was followed, with varying initial and final formulae, in the subsequent instruments. The King's Bill received the royal Sign Manual and became the authority for the issue by a Clerk to the Signet of (d) a Signet Bill. This was sent to the Lord Privy Seal, who based upon it (e) a Writ of Privy Seal, which was addressed to the Lord Chancellor, and became in its turn the authority for the issue of (f) the actual Letters Patent under the Great Seal. These were handed to the recipient, while the Writ of Privy Seal passed on to the Six Clerks in Chancery, for (g) an Enrolment of its contents upon the Patent Roll.

[844] Cf. ch. ii.

[845] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 216.

[846] Cf. App. D, Nos. ii-v.

[847] Dasent, iii. 307.

[848] S. P. D. Edw. VI, xv. 33. By 5 & 6 Edw. VI of 1552 (Statutes, iv. 155) travelling tinkers and pedlars could hold a licence from two justices of the peace. This arrangement is continued by the Act of 1572 (vide infra), and tinkers and pedlars are there grouped with players. Possibly therefore such local licences had also been issued to players who were not 'servants', even before 1572.

[849] Dasent, i. 104, 109, 110, 122. The nature of the joiners' offence is clear; three of those imprisoned were named Hawtrell, Lucke, and Lucas. They had played 'wythowt respect ether off the day or the ordre whiche was knowen openlye the Kinges Highnes intended to take for repressinge off playes'. At the same time the Lord Warden's men were committed 'for playing contrary to an ordre taken by the Mayour'.

[850] P. F. Tytler, England under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary, i. 21, from S. P. D. Edw. VI, i. 5.

[851] Gildersleeve, 5, points out that I was misled by Collier, i. 119, into citing the Marian proclamation in Mediaeval Stage, ii. 220, under 1533 as well as 1553. I regret the error.

[852] Dasent, vi. 102. The Lord Mayor is to send offending players 'to the Commissioners for Religion to be by them further ordered, and also to take ordre that no playe be made hencefourthe within the Citie except the same be first seen and allowed and the players aucthorised'.

[853] Cf. ch. xxii and App. D, Nos. ix, xii, xiii. The Commission had also an authority over vagrants in or near London, which apparently disappeared after the legislation of 1572 (vide infra).

[854] There is a doubtful notice of a Court play by the servants of George Evelyn of Wotton in 1588. Sir Percival Hart's sons played in 1565.

[855] The list of small travelling companies in Murray, ii. 77, 113, includes 14 belonging to knights and 3 to gentlemen in 1558-72, and 8 belonging to knights and 2 to gentlemen in 1573-97; also 7 companies under the names of their towns only in 1558-72 and 11 in 1573-97. Alexander Houghton of Lea in Lancashire wrote on 3 Aug. 1581 (G. J. Piccope, Lancashire and Cheshire Wills, ii. 238), 'Yt ys my wyll that Thomas Houghton of Brynescoules my brother shall have all my instrumentes belonginge to mewsyckes and all maner of playe clothes yf he be mynded to keppe and doe keppe players. And yf he wyll not keppe and maynteyne playeres then yt ys my wyll that Sir Thomas Heskethe Knyghte shall haue the same instrumentes and playe clothes. And I moste hertelye requyre the said Syr Thomas to be ffrendlye unto Foke Gyllome and William Shakshafte now dwellynge with me and ether to take theym unto his servyce or els to helpe theym to some good master'. Was then William Shakshafte a player in 1581?

[856] S. P. D. Eliz. clx. 48; clxiii. 44, record a dispute in 1583 between Sir Walter Waller and Mr. Potter, a J.P. of Kent. Waller, summoned before the Council, denies that his servants played an interlude at Brasted, and is confirmed by the constable and parishioners, who assert that Mr. Potter factiously sent the men to gaol as rogues. Lord Cobham made a vain attempt to reconcile the parties.

[857] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 259, on the history of this privilege. The reservation was continued by 39 Eliz. c. 4, § 10 (1598). By 43 Eliz. c. 9, § 2 (1601), it was made dependent on a certificate by the Lords Justices to the validity of Dutton's claim. Presumably this was obtained as the privilege was reserved unconditionally by 1 Jac. I, c. 7, § 8 (1604). There were several Elizabethan actors of the name of Dutton (cf. ch. xv), but it is not known whether they belonged to the Cheshire house.

[858] For documents addressed to Richard Young or mentions of him, cf. App. D, Nos. lxviii, lxxiv, xc. He is often referred to in the Hatfield MSS., in connexion with a monopoly of starch which he held, and otherwise. In 1593 (iv. 393) he writes 'from my house, Stratford the Bowe'. On 30 Nov. 1594 (v. 25) he wrote to the Queen, 'in these my aged and extreme or last days' with notes of many examinations, chiefly of papists, taken by him. On the other hand, Carter, Shakespeare Puritan and Recusant, 145, quotes an inscription on the coffin of Roger Rippon, who died in Newgate in 1592, 'his blood crieth for speedy vengeance against ... Mʳ. Richard Young, a justice of the peace in London, who in this and many like points hath abused his power for the upholding of the Romish Antichrist, Prelacy and Priesthood'.

[859] Cf. p. 265. Collier, i. 254, quotes an epigram calling Fleetwood 'the enemy of all poor players'. John Field dedicates his Godly Exhortation (1583) to him as a Middlesex and Surrey Justice.

[860] Cf. App. D, Nos. xxxvii, lxviii.

[861] Bacon, On the Controversies of the Church (Spedding, viii. 76).

[862] Cf. ch. xvi, introduction.

[863] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.vv. Jonson, Nashe.

[864] Cf. App. D, No. cxx.

[865] Wallace, ii. 162.

[866] There is no reference to licensing in the later Queen's Revels patent of 1610. That for the Queen's men in 1609 has the usual provision for licensing by the Master of the Revels. This was, however, not inconsistent with 'a kind of gouernment and suruey ouer the said players' by the Chamberlain of the Queen's Household (cf. ch. xiii).

[867] Philip Gawdy (Letters, 160) writes on 28 Oct. 1605 of his nephew in London, 'Playes he was never at any, for they are all put downe'; cf. App. D, Nos. cxxxix, cxl.

[868] Cf. ch. xvii.

[869] Some interesting light is thrown on the workings of the Vagabond Acts in the North Riding of Yorkshire by the presentations in Quarter Sessions Records (North Riding Record Soc.), i. 204, 260; ii. 110, 119, 197. At Topcliffe on 2 Oct. 1610 Thomas Pant, apprentice to Christopher Simpson of Egton, shoemaker and recusant, was released from his indentures on complaining that he had been 'trayned up for these three yeres in wandering in the country and playing of interludes'. At Helmesley on 8 July 1612 Christopher Simpson, late of Egton, was presented and fined as a player, and Richard Dawson, tanner and constable of Stokesley, for allowing Christopher and also Robert Simpson of Staythes, shoemaker, Richard Hudson of Hutton Bushell, weaver, and Edward Lister of Allerston, weaver, to wander as common players of interludes. A similar charge was made against William Blackborne, labourer and constable of Marton, as regards Robert Simpson, Richard Knagges of Moorsham, William Fetherston of Danby, and James Pickering of Bowlby, mason. At Helmesley on 9 Jan. 1616 a number of gentlemen and yeomen were presented for receiving players in their houses and giving them bread and drink. John, Richard, and Cuthbert Simpson, recusants, of Egton, Robert Simpson, of Staythes, and four other players were fined 10s. each. There were similar cases at Hutton Bushell on 4 April 1616, at Thirsk on 10 April 1616 and 7 April 1619, and at Helmesley on 9 July 1616. Presumably the Simpsons were the same men who brought Sir John Yorke into trouble with the Star Chamber in 1614 (cf. p. 328).

[870] Gildersleeve, 28, 35, 38. The origin of the error is probably in the shoulder-note 'No Licence by any Noblemen shall exempt Players' to 1 Jac. I, c. 7, § 1, in the R. O. edition of the Statutes.

[871] The players of Lords Berkeley, Chandos, Dudley, Evers, Huntingdon, and Mounteagle (Murray, ii. 28, 32, 43, 45, 49, 57), as well as those of the Duke of Lennox (cf. ch. xiii), are still traceable after 1604.

[872] Cf. App. D, No. clviii, and ch. xiii, s.v. Anne's.

[873] Cf. ch. xii, s.v. King's Revels. A later warrant of 20 Nov. 1622 deals with the same abuse of players and others who 'without the knowledge and approbacon of his maiesties office of the Revels' travel 'by reason of certaine grants comissions and lycences which they haue by secret meanes procured both from the Kings Maiestie and also from diuerse noblemen' (Murray, ii. 351).

[874] M. S. C. i. 284; Murray, ii. 192.

[875] The Lord Coke his Speech and Charge. With a Discouerie of the Abuses and Corruption of Officers (1607) H₂. There is an epistle to the Earl of Exeter signed R. P., said (D. N. B.) to be Robert Pricket.

[876] Coke, Preface to 7th Report, 'libellum quendam ... rudem et inconcinnum ... quem sane contestor non solum me omnino insciente fuisse divulgatum, sed ... ne unam quidem sententiolam eo sensu et significatione, prout dicta erat, fuisse enarratam'; cf. Gildersleeve, 40; J. Haslewood in Gentleman's Magazine, lxxxvi. 1. 205; 1 N. Q. vii. 376, 433.

[877] Prynne, 492, 497.

[878] Hazlitt, E. D. S. 67.

[879] Murray, ii. 77, gives records of seventy-nine 'Lesser Men's Companies', many of which appear at one town only, while all have a narrow range. Naturally the names of the great nobles carried weight over a wider area. The players in Ratseis Ghost (Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 326) 'denied their owne Lord and Maister, and used another Noblemans name'.

[880] The showman of the royal ape in Taylor's Wit and Mirth (cf. p. 267) wears 'a brooch in his hat, like a tooth drawer, with a Rose and Crowne, and two letters'.

[881] Harington, Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596), 135, 'I will neither end with sermon nor with prayer, lest some wags liken me to my L. (____) players, who when they have ended a bawdy comedy, as though that were a preparative to devotion, kneel down solemnly, and pray all the company to pray with them for their good Lord and master'; A Mad World, my Masters, v. ii. 200, 'This shows like kneeling after the play; I praying for my good lord Owemuch and his good countess, our honourable lady and mistress'. This prayer might be combined with one for the Sovereign and estates; cf. chh. xviii, xxii.

[882] Cf. ch. xiii (Interluders).

[883] R. O. Lord Chamberlain's Records, ii. 4 (4).

[884] N. S. S. Trans. (1877-9), 15*, from Lord Chamberlain's Records, vol. 58a, now ii. 4 (5).

[885] Sullivan, 250; C. C. Stopes in Sh.-Jahrbuch, xlvi. 92; from Lord Chamberlain's Records, ii. 48; v. 92, 93. I am not sure whether the velvet was for a 'cap' or a 'cape'.

[886] Sullivan, 253; cf. vol. i, p. 52.

[887] Stopes (supra). I find a confirmatory note to a Household list of 1641 in Lord Chamberlain's Records, iii. 1, 'Note that the Companyes of Players under the Titles of the Kings, Queenes, Queene of Bohemia, Prince & Duke of Yorke are all of them sworne Groomes of the Chamber in ordinary without fee'. I cannot accept Miss Sullivan's theory that 'without fee' means that the players did not have to buy their places.

[888] Cf. App. C, Nos. xvii, xxxi.

[889] Platter in 1599 (cf. ch. xvi, introd.) says that plays were given 'alle tag vmb 2 vhren nach mittag'. T. S. Graves, in E. S. xlvii. 66, argues in favour of occasional night performances, and is answered by W. J. Lawrence in E. S. xlviii. 213. Whatever may have been done before 1574 or thereabouts, I find no later evidence which is not to be explained either by private performances or by a loose use of 'night' for the evening hour at which plays terminated in winter. Nor can I go with Lawrence in supposing an exception for Sunday. The Southwark play at 8 p.m. on Sunday, 12 June 1592, cannot have been at a regular theatre, for there was none within the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction. The allusion in Crosse's Vertue's Commonwealth (1603) can quite well be to private plays (cf. App. C), and Henslowe's entry (i. 83) of a loan of 30s. 'when they fyrst played Dido at nyght', on Sunday, 8 Jan. 1598, only suggests to me the payment by Henslowe of the shot for a supper after the first performance. Or it may have been a private performance, for Henslowe does not appear (vide infra) to have opened the Rose on Sundays.

[890] Cf. App. D, No. xv (1564), 'now daylye, but speciallye on holydayes'; No. xvi (1569), 'on the Saboth dayes and other solempne feastes commaunded by the church to be kept holy'; No. xvii (1571), 'vpon sondaies, holly daies, or other daie of the weke, or ells at night'; No. xxxii (1574), 'on sonndaies and holly dayes, at which tymes such playes weare chefelye vsed'; App. C, No. xxii (1579), 'These because they are allowed to play euery Sunday, make iiii or v Sundayes at least euery weeke'.

[891] There was a disorder at the Theatre on Sunday, 10 April 1580, but by July 1581 the Lord Mayor had made an order against Sunday plays, which Berkeley's men disregarded. The Privy Council letter of 3 Dec. 1581 to the City accepts the exclusion of Sunday. Gosson, Playes Confuted (1582), 167, and Field (Jan. 1583), C. iii, acknowledge the change of day. When therefore Stubbes (1 March 1583), 137, criticizes Sunday plays, he must have the suburbs in mind. Paris Garden fell on Sunday, 13 Jan. 1583. On 3 July 1583 the Lord Mayor told the Privy Council that Sunday baitings were resumed. The documents of the 1584 controversy, however, state that as a result of the accident, letters were obtained to banish plays (and doubtless also baiting) 'in the places nere London' on the Sabbath days. Whetstone (1584) also alludes to a 'reforme' by the 'magistrate' in this matter.

[892] Henslowe, ii. 324.

[893] Cf. Middleton, A Mad World, my Masters (1608), I. i. 38, 'Tis Lent in your cheeks; the flag's down'; T. Earle, Microcosmography, char. 64, of a player, 'Shrove-tuesday hee feares as much as the bawdes, and Lent is more damage to him then the butcher'.

[894] Variorum, iii. 65, from Sir Henry Herbert's papers, which also record a similar payment in 1618 'for toleration in the holydays'. Herbert himself sold similar indulgences and in a list of customary Revels fees drawn up in 1662 includes £3 'for Lent fee', together with £3 'for Christmasse fee' (Variorum, iii. 266). Prynne, Histriomastix (1633), 784, notes the custom of suppressing plays 'in Lent, till now of late'.

[895] Cf. ch. xiii (Lady Elizabeth's). About 1617 Prince Charles's men were complaining to Alleyn that 'intemperate Mr. Meade' had taken 'the day from vs which by course was ours'.

[896] By 1574 the City had offers to farm their licensing rights 'to the relefe of the poore in the hospitalles'; but their regulations of Dec. 1574 provide for direct contributions to the poor and sick by holders of licences for playing-places. A weekly subsidy to the poor from every stage is suggested by Walsingham's correspondent of 1587. Hunsdon, in asking for the use of the Cross Keys in 1594, promised that his men would 'be contributories to the poore of the parishe where they plaie accordinge to their habilities'. In 1600 the Southwark Vestry were negotiating with the players for tithes and contributions for the poor on the basis of an 'order taken before my lords of Canterbury and London and the Master of the Revels'. In the same year the inhabitants of Finsbury recite the 'very liberall porcion' of money promised weekly for the relief of the poor as one of their grounds for assenting to the building of the Fortune. The accounts of the overseers of Paris Garden between 1611 and 1621 show varying sums, amounting to about £4 or £5 a year, as received during several years from the players at the Swan.

[897] The Middlesex records for 1616 show the Queen's men at the Red Bull as in arrear for their contribution, 'being taxed by the bench 40s. the yeare by theire own consentes'.

[898] Cf. ch. viii.

[899] As far back as 1549 the City had appointed two Secondaries of the Compters to license plays; but this arrangement doubtless terminated when the King and Council assumed the function; cf. ch. ix. In 1572 the Council were pressing the City to appoint 'discreet persons' for the purpose, and in 1574 suggested the suitability of one Mr. Holmes. But the City, who claimed to have had profitable offers to farm the licensing, repeated a former refusal to commit it to any private person. The regulations of 1574 provide for the appointment by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of persons to peruse and allow plays. But the Council are still urging, and the City promising, the appointment of licensers in 1582.

[900] Cf. ch. iii.

[901] The unauthorized company which stole this licence (cf. ch. xiii, s.v. Worcester's) is probably that which appeared as the Master of the Revels' players at Ludlow on 7 Dec. 1583 and at Bath and Gloucester in 1583-4 (Murray, ii. 201, 282, 325). I do not think that Tilney himself had a company. His predecessor had. Plomer (3 Library, ix. 252) notes a Canterbury payment, omitted by Murray, in 1569-70, to 'Syr Thomas Bernars [? Benger's] players, Master of the Quenes Majesties Revells'. But this was before the Act of 1572.

[902] Possibly the Southwark order for tithes from players, taken before 'my lords of Canterbury and London and the Master of the Revels' about 1600, implies some continuance of the commission. The issue of licences, both for the performance and after 1607 for the printing of plays, 'under the hand of' the Master (cf. ch. xxii), does not exclude the possibility of his acting on the report of an expert assessor, and one is tempted to conjecture that this may have been the position of Segar, who sometimes licensed for the press as deputy to Buck. But it is clear from passages in Sir Henry Herbert's office-book (Variorum, iii. 229-42) that he at least personally read the 'books' of plays.

[903] Henslowe, ii. 113, where Dr. Greg inter alia disposes of Mr. Fleay's theory that some of the fees entered in the Diary are for licences authorizing the publication, not the performance, of plays.

[904] Cf. App. D, No. cliv.

[905] The intruding company of 1598 had not been 'bound' to the Master. The Master's licence to Worcester's men in 1583 is described as an 'indenture of lycense', and the players were 'bound to the orders prescribed by the said Edmund Tyllneye'. On 2 Jan. 1595 Henslowe paid the Master £10 'in full payment of a bonde of one hundreth powndes' (Henslowe, i. 39). This looks as if he had forfeited a recognizance.

[906] The licence to the Queen's Revels (1604) is an exception. Here there is no reference to the Master and the allowance of plays is committed to Samuel Daniel 'whome her pleasure is to appoynt for that purpose'. Nor is the Master mentioned in the unexecuted draft (c. 1604) for the Queen's men. Probably the reason is to be found in the existence of a separate Chamberlain for the Queen's Household. The Master of the Revels was of course an officer of the King's Lord Chamberlain. The Master's rights are reserved in the patent actually issued to the Queen's men in 1609. Daniel's licensing had been far from a success; cf. p. 326. Oddly enough, whatever Daniel's legal rights, it appears from his exculpation of his Philotas (q.v.) that the Master did in fact 'peruse' that play.

[907] A Chamberlain's warrant of 20 Nov. 1622 requires a licence from the Master for any travellers who 'shall shewe or present any play shew motion feats of actiuity and sights whatsoeuer' (Murray, ii. 352). This was motived by certain irregular licences procured 'both from the Kings Maiestie and also from diuerse noblemen'. The commission of 1581 is wide enough to cover all 'shewes'; possibly the actual practice was extended when the Act of 1604 restricted the protection of noblemen to players of interludes proper—a restriction evidently still imperfectly observed in 1622. The earliest licence for a non-dramatic show on record is one of date earlier than 5 Oct. 1605 to John Watson, ironmonger, 'to shewe two beasts called Babonnes' (Murray, ii. 338; cf. ch. xxiv, s.v. Sir G. Goosecap), and this was a royal warrant, perhaps under the signet. But on 6 Sept. 1610 Buck issued a licence to 'shew a strange lion, brought to do strange things, as turning an ox to be roasted, &c.' (S. P. D. Jac. I, lvii. 45), and the keeper of a 'motion' in Bartholomew Fair (1614), V. 5, 18, says, 'I have the Master of the Reuell's hand for it'. Later examples of signet warrants for shows are in Murray, ii. 342, and of licences from the Master in Murray, ii. 351 sqq., and Herbert, 46; cf. Gildersleeve, 64, 72.

[908] Cf. ch. xxii. Herbert noted at the Restoration (Dramatic Records, 96), 'Severall playes allowed by Mister Tilney in 1598. As Sir William Longsword allowed to be acted in 1598, The Fair Maid of London. Richard Cor de Lyon. See the Bookes.'

[909] The manuscript of The Honest Man's Fortune (1613) has some censorial notes and an allowance at the end of the book by Herbert on the occasion of a revival in 1625. Of later manuscripts, that of Sir John Van Olden Barnevelt (Bullen, O. E. P. ii. 101) has corrections by Herbert, but no allowance, and that of Massinger's Believe As You List (facs. in T. F. T.) is a second draft, prepared to meet criticisms by Herbert, and allowed by him; cf. Gildersleeve, 114, 123.

[910] The extent to which Tilney's handiwork is apparent in the text is a matter of great palaeographical difficulty fully studied by Dr. Greg, who takes the view that the insertions and many of the corrections in the manuscript were made before it was submitted to Tilney, and are not an attempt to carry out the revision directed by him. If so, he was very easy-going as regards willingness to peruse a most disorderly text.

[911] Herbert (Variorum, iii. 235) records a conversation between Charles I and himself about the language of Davenant's Wits, at the end of which he noted in his office-book, 'The Kinge is pleased to take faith, death, slight, for asseverations and no oaths, to which I doe humbly submit as my masters judgment; but under favour conceive them to be oaths, and enter them here, to declare my opinion and submission'. I also find Herbert occasionally expurgating 'obsceanes' and 'ribaldry' from plays (Variorum, iii. 208, 232, 241). But it is obvious from extant texts that neither he nor his predecessors made any attempt to enforce a high standard of decency.

[912] R. Whyte to Sir R. Sidney on 26 Oct. 1599 (Sydney Papers, ii. 136), 'Two daies agoe, the ouerthrow of Turnholt, was acted vpon a Stage, and all your Names vsed that were at yt; especially Sir Fra. Veres, and he that plaid that Part gott a Beard resembling his, and a Watchet Sattin Doublett, with Hose trimd with Siluer Lace. You was also introduced, Killing, Slaying, and Overthrowing the Spaniards, and honorable Mention made of your Service, in seconding Sir Francis Vere, being engaged'. Turnhout was taken from the Spanish by Count Maurice of Nassau, with the help of an English contingent, on 24 Jan. 1598.

[913] Winwood to Cecil from Paris on 7 July 1602 (Winwood, i. 425), 'Upon Thursday last, certain Italian comedians did set up upon the corners of the passages in this towne that that afternoone they would play l'Histoire Angloise contre la Roine d'Angleterre'. Winwood protested and secured an inhibition, but 'It was objected to me before the Counsaile by some Standers by, that the Death of the Duke of Guise hath ben plaied at London; which I answered was never done in the life of the last King; and sence, by some others, that the Massacre of St. Bartholomews hath ben publickly acted, and this King represented upon the stage'. The play introducing Henri IV was probably a revival by the Admiral's men of Marlowe's Massacre at Paris, for which Henslowe was making advances in Nov. 1601 and Jan. 1602; cf. Bk. III. Evidently Elizabeth got as good as she gave on the stage. On 2 June 1598 Dr. Fletcher describes to Sir R. Cecil (Hatfield MSS. viii. 190) a recent dumb show at Brussels in which she was mocked at. On 7 June 1598 one Mr. Hungerford describes to Essex (Hatfield MSS. viii. 197) another, or perhaps the same, show at Antwerp, in which also she appeared. In Oct. 1607 Walter Yonge records in his Diary (Camden Soc.), 15, a play at the Jesuit College of Lyons. It lasted two days, and employed 100 actors. An abbess played the Virgin. Calvin, Luther, and others 'with our late good Queen Elizabeth, condemned', were represented. The episodes included 'the meritorious deed intended of gunpowder; the conspiracy of Babington, and others, against Queen Elizabeth; all which were rewarded with the joys of Paradise'. Yonge adds that a storm broke, and 'the three resembling the Trinity, and the abbess were stricken with the hand of the Lord, and it was never known what became of them'. He says that books were printed about the incident; there are in fact no less than five recorded in Arber, iii. 361-4 (cf. App. M).

[914] Cf. ch. viii. On 20 July 1586 the Venetian ambassador in Spain reported (V. P. viii. 182) Philip's resentment at 'the masquerades and comedies which the Queen of England orders to be acted at his expense. His Majesty has received a summary of one of these which was lately represented, in which all sorts of evil is spoken of the Pope, the Catholic religion, and the King, who is accused of spending all his time in the Escurial with the monks of St. Jerome, attending only to his buildings, and a hundred other insolences which I refrain from sending to your Serenity'. This is confirmed by Collier, i. 279, from a manuscript Declaration of the True Causes of the Great Troubles supposed to be Intended against the Realm of England (1592). On 15 April 1598 George Nicolson wrote from Edinburgh to Burghley (Sc. P. ii. 749), 'It is regretted that the comedians of London should scorn the king and the people of this land in their play; and it is wished that the matter should be speedily amended lest the king and the country be stirred to anger'.

[915] Cf. ch. viii.

[916] Cf. App. C, No. xlv.

[917] S. P. F. xi. 567. Cecilia complained to her brother, King John of Sweden, 'Another time she being bidden to see a comedy played, there was a black man brought in, and as he was of an evil favoured countenance, so was he in like manner full of lewd, spiteful and scornful words, which she said represented the marquis, her husband'.

[918] Burn, 153, notes from Lansd. MS. 232, that the Star Chamber inflicted a severe punishment for the impersonation of Leicester in a play.

[919] Bacon (Spedding, ix. 177), The Proceedings of the Earl of Essex.

[920] S. P. D. Eliz. cclxxiv. 138.

[921] Cf. ch. xiii (Chamberlain's).

[922] It is probably unnecessary to take literally Arabella Stuart's letter of 16 Feb. 1603 to Edward Talbot (Bradley, Arabella Stuart, i. 128; ii. 119), 'I am as unjustly accused of contriving a comedy, as you (on my conscience) a tragedy'.

[923] Von Raumer, ii. 206.

[924] Winwood, ii. 54. Furnivall, Stubbes, 79*, tried in vain to identify a manuscript tract on the abusive attacks of players stated by Haslewood in Gentleman's Magazine (1816), lxxxvi. 1. 205, to be in the British Museum. Possibly it was Sloane MS. 3543, ff. 19ᵛ, 49, a Treatise Apologeticall for Huntinge, which refers to the 'taxation' of James on the stage for his love of sport; cf. R. Simpson in N. S. S. Trans. (1874), 375, and E. J. L. Scott in Athenaeum (1896), i. 756.

[925] Cf. ch. xii (Chapel).

[926] Sir Edward Conway to the Privy Council, 12 Aug. 1624 (Chalmers, Apology, 500, from S. P. D. Charles I, clxxi. 39), 'His Majesty remembers well there was a commandment and restraint given against the representing of any modern Christian Kings in those stage-plays'. This was written about the performance of Middleton's A Game of Chess, reflecting on the Spanish policy of James I, by the King's men; cf. M. S. C. i. 379. Other post-Shakespearian indiscretions were a performance of a play on the Marquis D'Ancre by an unnamed company in 1617 (M. S. C. i. 376), and one of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt by the King's men in 1619 (Bullen, O. E. P. iv. 381, from S. P. D. James cx. 37); cf. Gildersleeve, 113.

[927] This work is not directly concerned with the literary content of stage-plays. But I may be allowed to express the opinion that the search for the 'topical' in Elizabethan drama has been pushed beyond the limits of good sense. Thus I agree with P. W. Long, The Purport of Lyly's Endimion (M. L. A. xxiv. 164), that there is little ground for the elaborate theories of a dramatization of Elizabeth's personal amours propounded successively by N. J. Halpin, Oberon's Vision (Sh. Soc. 1843), G. P. Baker, Lyly's Endymion (1894), xli, and R. W. Bond, Works of Lyly (1902), iii. 81. Similarly the conjectures of R. Simpson in his School of Shakespeare (1878) and elsewhere, and of Fleay, and of most of the writers, other than Small, on the 'war of the theatres' require handling with the utmost caution.

[928] Winwood, ii. 41.

[929] Gildersleeve, 108, from Hist. MSS. iii. 57.

[930] 7 N. Q. iii. 126; Hist. MSS. iii. 62; S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxvii. 58 (John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton); Burn, 78, from Harl. MS. 1227. Yorke was fined and imprisoned with his wife and brothers, 'pur admittinge de certeigne comon players (vizᵗ) les Simpsons de player en son meason un enterlude in q. la fuit disputation perenter Popish preist et English minister et le preist est de convince le minister in argument et le weapon de le minister esteant le bible et le preist le crosse et le Diabole fuit counterfeit la de prender le English minister et son Angle prist le preist per q. enterlude le religion ore profeste fuit grandment scandall et pluss del audience fueront recusants.... Le cheife Justice [Coke?] dit q. players de enterludes sont Rogues per le statute ... et le very bringing de religion sur le stage est libell.' On the career of the Simpsons, cf. ch. ix. The actual offence may have been some years earlier than the Star Chamber sitting of 1614, for Devon, 261, records a payment to the Keeper of the Gatehouse at Westminster for the diet of Lady Julian, wife of Sir John Yorke, as a prisoner from 5 Nov. 1611 to 13 Oct. 1613. The Yorkes were not of those who learn by experience, for in 1628 the Star Chamber sentenced Christopher Malloy for playing the devil in a performance at Sir John Yorke's house in Yorkshire, in which part he carried King James on his back to hell, and alleged that all Protestants were damned (Burn, 119).

[931] Dekker, Work for Armourers (1609, Works, iv. 96), 'Tearme times, when the Twopeny Clients and Peny Stinkards swarme together to heere the Stagerites'.

[932] Dekker, The Dead Tearme (1608, Works, iv. 22), of Bartholomewtide, 'when thou (O thou beautifull, but bewitching Citty) ... allurest people from all the corners of the land, to throng in heapes, at thy Fayres and thy Theators'.

[933] Dekker, Seven Deadly Sins of London (1606, Works, ii. 52), 'The players prayd for his [Sloth's] comming: they lost nothing by it, the comming in of tenne Embassadors was never so sweete to them, as this our sinne was: their houses smoakt every after noone with Stinkards who were so glewed together in crowdes with the steames of strong breath, that when they came foorth, their faces lookt as if they had beene per-boyld'.

[934] Cf. App. D, Nos. cxxxi, cli.

[935] Cf. App. E.

[936] The full tables are in Murray, ii. 181.

[937] Your Five Gallants (1607), iv. 2. 30, 'If the bill down rise to above thirty, here's no place for players' (cf. App. E, s. a. 1605); Ram Alley (1607-8), iv. 1, 'I dwindle as a new player does at a plague bill certefied forty'. Thorndike, Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher upon Shakespeare, 16, doubts whether the theatres can in fact have been wholly closed from Aug. 1608 to Dec. 1609, when the bill was almost continuously over 40. I think that Murray, ii. 175, sufficiently answers some of his points, but in Shakespeare's Theater, 241, he cites Keysar v. Burbage (cf. ch. xii, s.v. Chapel) as evidence that the King's played at Blackfriars during the plague season of 1609. Both disputants seem to have overlooked the special payments to the King's men (App. B) for private practice before the Christmases of 1608-9 and 1609-10. It is possible that they were allowed, in spite of a general restraint, to use the Blackfriars for this purpose, and even admit a select audience. If a similar relaxation was given to the Revels at Whitefriars, the dating of Epicoene in' 1609' would be explained. I do not agree with Murray that it is likely to have been produced in the provinces. After all, the plague bill was well under 40 by 7 Dec. 1609, although it went up to 39 again on 28 Dec.

[938] In 1574, a restraint covers 10 miles from the city; in 1581 (a civic precept), 2 miles; in 1593, 7 miles; in 1594, 5 miles; in 1597, 3 miles.

[939] Cf. App. D, Nos. lxxii, lxxv, and the use of the Curtain as an 'easer' to the Theatre (ch. xvi); also the relations of the Admiral's and Strange's during 1589-94.

[940] Strange's men petitioned c. 1592 (App. D, No. xcii), 'oure Companie is greate, and thearbie our chardge intollerable, in travellinge the Countrie, and the contynuance thereof wilbe a meane to bringe vs to division and seperacion'. My impression is that, when they did have to travel in 1592 or 1593, Pembroke's (cf. ch. xiii) budded off from them. Their own travelling warrant was for 6 men, but this does not exclude hirelings. The provincial records do not give much evidence as to the actual size of travelling companies. The strength of seven companies which visited Southampton in 1576-7 (Murray, ii. 396) ranged from 6 to 12. I incline to agree with Murray and W. J. Lawrence (T. L. S., 21 Aug. 1919) that the average may be put at about 10 for the latter part of the sixteenth century and that it grew in the seventeenth. A Lord Chamberlain's licence of 1621 (Murray, ii. 192) sets a limit of 18. Probably 10 men, duplicating parts, could play many of the London plays without alteration, but obviously not the more spectacular ones.

[941] Dekker, The Wonderfull Yeare (1603, Works, i. 100), 'The worst players Boy stood vpon his good parts, swearing tragicall and busking oathes, that how vilainously soeuer he randed, or what bad and vnlawfull action soeuer he entred into, he would in despite of his honest audience be halfe a sharer (at leaste) at home, or else strowle (thats to say trauell) with some notorious wicked floundring company abroad'; News from Hell (1606, Works, ii. 146), 'a companie of country players, ... that with strowling were brought to deaths door'; Belman of London (1608, Works, iii. 81), 'Nor Players they bee, who out of an ambition to weare the best Ierkin (in a Strowling company) or to Act great Parts, forsake the stately and our more than Romaine Cittie Stages, to trauel vpon the hard hoofe from village to village for chees & butter-milke'; Lanthorne and Candlelight (1608, Works, iii. 255), 'Strowlers; a proper name given to country players that (without socks) trotte from towne to towne vpon the hard hoofe'; The Raven's Almanac (1609, Works, iv. 196), 'Players, by reason they shal have a hard winter, and must travell on the hoofe, will lye sucking there for pence and twopences, like young pigges at a sow newly farrowed'.

[942] 'Paid to the plaiers with the waggon' (Exeter, 1576-7); 'Misdemeanoure done in the towne vppon misusage of a wagon or coache of the Lo. Bartlettes [Berkeley's] players' (Faversham, 1596-7); Dekker, Satiromastix, 1522, of Horace-Jonson, 'Thou hast forgot how thou amblest (in leather pilch) by a play-wagon, in the high way'; cf. ch. xi.

[943] R. W., Mount Tabor, 110 (repr. Harrison, iv. 355), Upon a Stage-play which I saw when I was a child. The play was the morality of The Castle of Security; cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 189.

[944] Cf. Bibl. Note to ch. xii.

[945] 'For lynks to give light in the euenyng' (Bristol, 1577); 'for candells and torches then spent' (Canterbury, 1574); 'for the skafowld' (Exeter, 1604-5); 'to make a scaffolde in the Bothall' (Gloucester, 1559-60, with similar entries in other years up to 1568); 'a pounde of candelles' (Gloucester, 1561-2); 'for nayles ... for layeing the tymber off ye stage together' (Maidstone, 1568-9); 'bordes that was borowed for to make a skaffold to the Halle' (Nottingham, 1572); 'for bearinge of bordes and other furniture' (Plymouth, 1580-1); 'for setting up stoopes for players' (Stafford, c. 1616).

[946] 'For amendynge the seelynge in the Guildhall that the Enterlude players had broken downe there this yeare' (Barnstaple, 1593-4); 'for mending the bord in the Yeld hall and the doers there, after my L. of Leycesters players who had leave to play there' (Bristol, 1577-8); 'for mending of ii forormes which were taken out of Sᵗ George Chapple and set in the Yeld hall at the play, and by the disordre of the people were broken' (Bristol, 1581); 'for mendinge the cheyre in the parlor at the Hall ... which was broken by the playars' (Leicester, 1605); 'for mendinge the glasse wyndowes att the towne hall more then was given by the playors whoe broake the same' (Leicester, 1608); &c.

[947] Murray, ii. 205, 229, 247, 261-3, 277-81, 284-5, 377-8, &c.

[948] Ibid. 202, 224, 'Given to the Queens plaiers xixˢ iiijᵈ, and was to make it up xxvjˢ viijᵈ that was gathered at the benche' (Bath, 1587); 'xvˢ beside the gatheringe' (Bath, 1588); 'xvˢ vjᵈ besides that which was given by the companie' (Bath, 1592); 'iijˢ viijᵈ on and besyde the benevolens of the people' (Canterbury, 1549); G. B. Richardson, Extracts from the Municipal Accounts of Newcastle, 'the Erle of Sussessx plaiers in full payment of £3 for playing a free play, commanded by Mʳ Maiore' (1594).

[949] Kelly, 197, 209, 247. On 22 Nov. 1566 a Corporation 'Act agaynst Waystynge of the Towne Stock' laid down that at plays there should be no 'greate alowance' out of the stock for rewards to players, but that 'euery one of the Maiores Brethren & of the xlviij beinge requyred, or havinge sommons by the comaundement of Mʳ. Maior for the tyme beinge to be there shall beare euery one of theym his & theire porcion'. This was confirmed on 4 Jan. 1570. On 16 Nov. 1582, 'It is agreed that frome henceforthe there shall not bee anye ffees or rewards gevon by the Chamber of this Towne, nor anye of the xxiiijᵗᶦ or xlviijᵗᶦ to be charged with anye payments ffor or towards anye Bearewards, Beearbaytings, Players, Playes, Enterludes or Games, or anye of theym except the Quenes Maiesties or the Lords of the Privye Counsall, nor that anye Players bee suffred to playe att the Towne Hall (except before except) & then butt onlye before the Mayor & his bretherne, vppon peyne of xlˢ to be lost by the Mayor that shall suffer or doe to the contrarye, to be levyed by his successour, vpon peyne of vˡᶦ if he make default therein'. On 30 Jan. 1607, 'It is agreed that non of either of the Twoe Companies shalbee compelled at anie tyme hereafter to paye towards anie playes, but such of them as shalbee then present at the said playes: the Kings Maiesties playors, the Queenes Maiesties playors, and the young Prince his playors excepted; and alsoe all such playors as doe belonge to anie of the Lords of his Maiesties most honorable Privie Counsell alsoe excepted; to theise they are to paye accordinge to the auncyent custome, havinge warnynge by the Mace bearer to bee att euerye such play'.

[950] Murray, ii. 206, 'Order by the bailiffes and 24 aldermen, as also by the comburgesses, that no playars or berwardes shalbe receved upon the Townes chardges, but if any will see the same plaies or bere baytinges, the same must be upon there owne costes and chardges'.

[951] When performances were prohibited at Chester in 1596 the city fixed the scale of 'gratuity' at 20s. for the Queen's players and 6s. 8d. for noblemen's players (Morris, 333). The Queen's men were 'much discontented' with 6s. at Dunwich in 1596-7 (Hist. MSS., Various Collections, vii. 82).

[952] 'Forasmuch as the grauntinge of leave to stage players or players of interludes and the like, to act and represent theire interludes playes and shewes in the towne-hall is very hurtfull troublesome and inconvenyent for that the table, benches and fourmes theire sett and placed for holdinge the Kinges Courtes are by those meanes broken and spoyled, or at least wise soe disordered that the Mayor and bayliffes and other officers of the saide courts comminge thither for the administracion of justice, especially in the Pipowder Courts of the said Towne, which are there to bee holden twice a day yf occasion soe require, cannot sit there in such decent and convenient order as becometh, and dyvers other inconvenyences do thereupon ensue, It is therefore ordered by generall consent that from henceforth no leaue shall bee graunted to any Stage players or interlude players or to any other person or persons resortinge to this towne to act shewe or represent any manner of interludes or playes or any other sportes or pastymes whatsoeuer in the said hall' (Southampton, 1623); 'Forasmuch as we finde the glass windows in the Council Chamber to be much broken, and the city thereby suffereth much damage, ordered that no plaies nor players be suffered to have any use thereof' (Worcester, 1627). An earlier Worcester order had limited players to 'the lower end onlie' of the guildhall. At Chester in 1615 the exclusion of players from the hall was openly based on 'the common brute & scandall' due to 'convertinge the same beinge appointed & ordained for the judicial hearinge & determininge of criminall offences, & for the solempne meetinge & concourse of this howse into a stage for plaiers & a receptacle for idle persons'.

[953] 'At the New Ynn' (Abingdon, 1559); 'Certen playars, playinge uppon ropes at the Crosse Keys' (Leicester, 1590). Worcester's men played at Norwich in 1583 'in their hoste his hows', and the Queen's men in the same year at the Red Lion. A Norwich order of 1601 forbade plays at the White Horse in Tombland. A Salisbury order of 1624 laid down that all plays should in future be at the George in High Street. Where the house of a named citizen is given as the play-place, one may perhaps generally infer an inn; but in 1573 Leicester's men seem to have played at Bristol 'in the Mayors house', and at Plymouth in 1559-60 'players of London' performed 'in the vycarage'.

[954] 'In the churche' (Doncaster, 1574); 'in the colledge churche yarde' (Gloucester, 1589-90); 'in the churche lofte' (Marlow, 1608-9); 'in the churche' (Plymouth, 1559-60, 1565-6, 1573-4); 'in XXe churche' (Norwich, 1589-90); 'the Chappell nere the Newhall' (Norwich, 1616); 'because they should not play in the church' (Syston, 1602). On the religious opposition to this practice, cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 191.

[955] M. Sellers, in E. H. R. xii. 446, from Corporation Minute Book, xxxiii, f. 187.

[956] Murray, ii. 335.

[957] Cf. ch. xii (Chapel).

[958] So, too, the Norwich accounts record in 1590 a reward to 'the lorde Shandos players' and 'Item more in rewarde to another company of his men that cam with lycens presently after saying that thos that cam before were counterfete and not the L. Shandos men'.

[959] Cf. ch. ix.

[960] 'There shall not any playes ... be played ... on any Sabaothe dayes nor aboue twoe daies together at any tyme. And no players ... to be suffered to playe againe ... within twentie and eighte daies nexte after such tyme as they shall haue laste played.... And they shall not exceede the hower of nyne of the clocke in the nighte' (Canterbury, Burghmote Book, 1595); 'This day lycens ys graunted to the L. of Huntington his players to playe one daye & not vppon the Saboath daye' (Norwich, 1597); 'The Quenes players had leave guiven them to play for one weeke so that they play neither on the Saboth day nor in the night nor more then one play a day' (Norwich, 1611).

[961] 'Not ... after nyne of the clocke' (Norwich, 1599); cf. Canterbury, above. A Chester order of 1615 fixed 6 p.m. and a Salisbury order of 1623 7 p.m. as the limit; an Exeter order of 1609 (H. M. C. Exeter MSS. 321) allowed 6 p.m. between Annunciation and Michaelmas and 5 p.m. between Michaelmas and Annunciation.

[962] Lord Coke, as Recorder of Coventry, wrote to the Corporation on 28 March 1615 (Murray, ii. 254): 'Forasmuch as this time is by his Maiesties lawes and iniunctions consecrated to the service of Almighty God, and publique notice was given on the last Sabaoth for preparacion to the receyving of the holy communion. Theis are to will and require you to suffer no common players whatsoever to play within your Citie for that it would tend to the hinderance of devotion, and drawing of the artificers and common people from their labour. And this being signified vnto any such they will rest therewith (as becometh them) satisfied, otherwise suffer you them not and this shall be your sufficient warrant.' The letter is endorsed 'The Lord Coke his lettre concerning the La: Eliza: Players'. The Earl of Cumberland would not let Lord Vaux's men play in 1609 'because it was Lent & therefor not fitting' (Murray, ii. 255).

[963] Murray, ii. 234 (Chester, 1595). The Privy Council warrant for the provincial tour of Strange's men in 1593 expressly excludes plays in service time.

[964] 'The tyme was busy, they dyd not play' (Bristol, 1541); 'for that they should not playe here by reason that the sicknes was then in this Cytye' (Canterbury, 1608); 'for that the tyme was not conveynyent' (Leicester, 1584); 'to avoyd the meetynge of people this whote whether for fear of any infeccon as also for that they came fro an infected place' (Norwich, 1583). On 6 May 1597 the Privy Council wrote to the Suffolk justices to prohibit stage plays during the Whitsun holidays at Hadleigh (App. D, No. cviii), 'doubting what inconveniences may follow thereon, especially at this tyme of scarcety, when disordred people of the comon sort wilbe apt to misdemeane themselves'. There had been tumults in Norfolk during April, owing to the scarcity of grain (Dasent, xxvii. 88). The Privy Council did not, however, often interfere directly with provincial plays; another example is the letter of 23 June 1592 to the Earl of Derby (cf. App. D, No. xci), forbidding plays on Sundays and holidays in his lieutenancy.

[965] I think there is a clear distinction in municipal accounts between a 'reward' for playing and a 'gratuity' for not playing; cf. the Norwich orders in Murray, ii. 339, 341, 'beinge demaunded wherefore their comeing was, sayd they came not to ask leaue to play but to aske the gratuetie of the Cytty' (1614), 'he was desired to desist from playing & offered a benevolence in money which he refused to accept' (1616), 'this house offered him a gratuitie to desist' (1616).

[966] A. Clark, Shirburn Ballads, 48. He complained that 'Before tyme noble-mens menn hadd such entertaynement when they came to the towne that the towne hadd the favour of noble-men, but now noble-mens menn hadd such entertaynement that the towne was brought into contempt with noble-menn'. The players were probably Essex's men, as their performance on Sunday was contrary to his 'lettre'. He was, however, also High Steward of Maldon.

[967] Cf. p. 336.

[968] T. Gent, Hist. of Hull, 128.

[969] Murray, ii. 337, 'This day John Mufford one of the Lᵈ Beauchamps players being forbidden by Mʳ Maiour to playe within the liberties of this Citie and in respect thereof gave them among them xxˢ and yett notwithstanding they did sett up bills to provoke men to come to their playe and did playe in XXe churche. Therefore the seid John Mufford is comytted to prison' (1590); cf. ch. xiii (Worcester's, 1583; Essex's, 1585; Derby's, 1602). So, too, at Coventry in 1600 'the lo: Shandoes [Chandos's] players were comitted to prison for their contempt agaynst Mʳ Maior & ther remayned untill they made their submisshon under their hands as appeareth in the fyle of Record and their hands to be seene'. At Nottingham in 1603 a penalty on the host is recorded in the entry 'Richard Jackson commytted for sufferinge players to sound thyere trumpetts and playinge in his howse without lycence, and for suffering his guests to be out all night'.

[970] Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 326, reprints from this tract (S. R. 31 May 1605) the chapter 'a pretty Prancke passed by Ratsey upon certain Players that he met by chance in an Inne, who denied their Lord and Maister, and used another Noblemans name'. Gamaliel Ratsey, highwayman, harangued the players, like Hamlet, on 'striving to over-doe, and go beyond yourselves ... yet your poets take great paines to make your parts fit for your mouthes, though you gape never so wide', and on the ups and downs of the profession, for some 'goe home at night with fifteene pence share apeece', while others become wealthy. Later he met them again passing 'like camelions' under the name of another lord. They gave a 'private play' before Ratsey, who rewarded them with 40s., 'with which they held themselves very richly satisfied, for they scarce had twentie shillings audience at any time for a play in the countrey'. Next day he met them with their wagon in the highway, robbed them, bade them pawn their apparel, 'for as good actors and stalkers as you are have done it, though now they scorne it', gave them leave to play under his protection and share with him, and advised their leader to get to London.

[971] Payments to travelling companies appear in the household accounts of the Earl of Rutland at Belvoir (Rutland MSS. iv. 260), the Earl of Cumberland at Skipton Castle (Murray, ii. 255), the Duchess of Suffolk at Grimsthorpe (Ancaster MSS. 459), Sir George Vernon at Haddon Hall (G. Le B. Smith, Haddon, 121), Lord North at Kirtling (Murray, ii. 295), the Earl of Derby at Lathom House, New Park, and Knowsley Hall (Murray, ii. 296), the Shuttleworths at Smithills and Gawthorpe Hall (Murray, ii. 393), and Francis Willoughby at Wollaton (Middleton MSS. 421). In A Mad World, my Masters, v. 1, 2, characters shamming to be Lord Owemuch's players come to Sir Bounteous Progress's, and perform The Slip, until they are interrupted by a constable.

[972] Murray, ii. 19-98, records, in addition to the above, the names of from fifty to sixty patrons between 1559 and 1616, under whose names companies are not traceable in London.

[973] Cf. ch. xxii.

[974] Cf. ch. xiii (King's, Anne's).

[975] Grosart, Lismore Papers, 1. xix; W. J. Lawrence, Was Shakespeare ever in Ireland? (Sh.-Jahrbuch, xlii. 65). The earliest notice is of Prince Charles's men in Feb. 1616.

[976] Cf. ch. xiv.

[977] C. Hughes, Shakespeare's Europe, 304, 373. Moryson again refers to the vogue abroad of 'stragling broken companyes' from England in his account of the London theatre; cf. ch. xvi, introduction.

[978] E. Cellius, Eques Auratus Anglo-Wirtembergicus (1605), 229 'Profert enim multos et praestantes Anglia musicos, comoedos, tragoedos, histrionicae peritissimos, e quibus interdum aliquot consociati sedibus suis ad tempus relictis ad exteras nationes excurrere, artemque suam illis praesertim Principum aulis demonstrare ostentareque consueverunt. Paucis ab hinc annis in Germaniam nostram Anglicani musici dictum ob finem expaciati, et in magnorum Principum aulis aliquandiu versati, tantum ex arte musica, histrionicaque sibi favorem conciliarunt, ut largiter remunerati domum inde auro et argento onusti sunt reversi'; Johannes Rhenanus, in dedication of Streit der Sinne (a translation of the English play of Lingua) to Maurice of Hesse-Cassel, '... die Engländischen Comoedianten (ich rede von geübten) anderen vorgehn und den Vorzug haben'; Daniel von Wensin, Oratio contra Britanniam, in Fr. Achillis Ducis Würtemberg, Consultatio de principatu inter provincias Europae habita Tubingae in illustri collegio (1613), 'Nec diu est cum plerique artifices in Anglia peregrini et exteri et aurifabri Londini pene omnes fuerunt Germani: Anglis interea gulae voluptatibus ... et rebus nihili, atque adeo histrioniae iugiter operam dantibus; in qua sic profecerunt, ut iam apud nos Angli histriones omnium maxime delectent'.

[979] Another example is Ioannes Valentinus Andreae, who writes in his Vita (ed. 1849), 10 'Iam a secundo et tertio post millesimum sexcentesimum coeperam aliquid exercendi ingenii ergo pangere, cuius facile prima fuere Esther et Hyacinthus comoediae ad aemulationem Anglicorum histrionum iuvenili ausu factae'.

[980] M. Röchell, Chronik, in Die Geschichtsquellen des Bisthums Münster, iii. 174.

[981] E. Mentzel, Geschichte der Schauspielkunst in Frankfurt, 52.

[982] Cohn, lxxxviii.

[983] A. Glaser, Geschichte des Theaters in Braunschweig, 13.

[984] Archiv für Litteratur-Geschichte, xv. 212, from diary of Martin Crusius at Tübingen in 1597: 'Es sind wol x Comoedianten hie gewesen: qui 5 aut 6 dies comoedias egerunt in domo frumentaria. Dicuntur Angli esse et miri artifices. Sunt illi quibus Dux noster 300 fl. donasse dicitur. Ego non spectaui. Quid ad hominem ista septuagenario maiorem? fuerunt illa dramata amatoria. Hodie Susannam egerunt. Ego sum scriptoribus Homericis occupatus.'

[985] Cohn, lxxx.

[986] C. F. Meyer in Sh.-Jahrbuch, xxxviii. 200.

[987] C. Harris in M. L. A. xxii. 446.

[988] Cohn, xcvi.

[989] App. C, No. xlviii.

[990] C. Severn, Diary of John Ward (c. 1661-3), 183, 'I have heard that Mʳ. Shakespeare ... in his elder days lived at Stratford: and supplied the stage with 2 plays every year, and for itt had an allowance so large, that hee spent att the rate of a 1,000l a year, as I have heard'; Aubrey, ii. 226, 'I thinke I have been told that he left 2 or 300 li per annum there and thereabout [i.e. at Stratford] to a sister'.

[991] Lee, 281; G. R. French, Shakespeareana Genealogica, 514; Herald and Genealogist, i. 492.

[992] Lee, 285, citing (a) manuscript notes by Ralph Brooke on William Dethick's grants of arms, in which both Shakespeare and Cowley appear in a list of persons given arms on false pretences, and (b) a manuscript Discourse of the Causes of Discord amongst the Officers of Arms by William Smith, Rougedragon, 'Phillipps the player had graven in a gold ring the armes of Sʳ Wᵐ Phillipp, Lord Bardolph, with the said L. Bardolphs cote quartred, which I shewed to Mʳ York [Brooke, York Herald] at a small gravers shopp in Foster Lane.... Pope the player would have no other armes but the armes of Sʳ Tho. Pope, Chancelor of yᵉ Augmentations'.

[993] App. C, No. liv.

[994] Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 325; cf. ch. x.

[995] App. C, Nos. xxii, lvii; cf. Wright (App. I, ii) on the 'grave and sober behaviour' of the later King's men.

[996] Cf. ch. xiii (Anne's).

[997] Cf. ch. xiii (Lady Elizabeth's).

[998] Dekker and Webster, Northward Ho! IV. i. 1:

'Bellamont. Sirrah, I'll speak with none.

Servant. What? Not a player?

Bellamont. No; though a sharer bawl.

I'll speak with none, although it be the mouth

Of the big company.'

Cf. Dekker, News from Hell (1606, Works, ii. 99), 'Marrie players swarme there as they do here, whose occupation being smelt out, by the Caco-daemon, or head officer of the Countrie, to bee lucrative, he purposes to make vp a company, and to be chiefe sharer himselfe'; also A Mad World, my Masters, V. i. 42, where one of the sham Lord Owemuch's players is a 'politician', who 'works out restraints, makes best legs at court, and has a suit made of purpose for the company's business' and 'has greatest share and may live of himselfe'.

[999] Jonson, Poetaster, III. iv. 373, 'Commend me to seuen-shares and a halfe, and remember to morrow—if you lacke a seruice, you shall play in my name, rascalls, but you shall buy your owne cloth, and I'le ha' two shares for my countenance'. It appears from a list of Sir Henry Herbert's profits as Master of the Revels, drawn up in 1662, that he had secured a share, which he valued at £100 a year, from each of the London companies, other than the King's men (Variorum, iii. 266).

[1000] It is impossible to say what arrangement underlies the statement in an undated letter from Richard Jones to Alleyn about a German tour (Henslowe Papers, 33) that Robert Browne was 'put to half a shaer, and to stay hear, for they ar all against his goinge'.

[1001] Hamlet, III. ii. 286:

'Hamlet. Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers—if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me—with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players.

Horatio. Half a share.

Hamlet. A whole one, I.'

For half-sharers, cf. ch. xiii (Queen's, Admiral's). Three-quarter sharers existed in the Lady Elizabeth's men about 1614; cf. T. M., Father Hubburd's Tales (Bullen, Middleton, viii. 64), 'The ant began to stalk like a three-quarter sharer'.

[1002] The number of players named in the Jacobean patents varies from 7 to 14, but this gives little direct guidance as to the number of sharers. It is, however, consistent with my estimate, which is based mainly upon the number of Admiral's men shown at various times in contractual relations with Henslowe. There were 12 sharers in the Lady Elizabeth's company in 1611 and 12 in Queen Anne's company in 1617. Probably the Elizabethan companies ran rather smaller.

[1003] Dekker, News from Hell (1606), 'a companie of country players, being nine in number, one sharer and the rest jornymen'; cf. p. 362.

[1004] Cf. ch. ix.

[1005] Amalgamated companies also toured the provinces, and even entered into partnership with companies, such as Lord Morley's, which were purely provincial. Thus we find Hunsdon's and Morley's at Bristol in 1583, and Hunsdon's and Howard's at Leicester in 1585; the Queen's and Sussex's at Southampton, Gloucester, and Coventry in 1590-1; the Queen's and Morley's at Aldeburgh on 11 Oct. 1592 (Stopes, Hunnis, 314); the Admiral's, Strange's (or Derby's), and Morley's variously combined at Ipswich, Southampton, Bath, Shrewsbury, York, and Newcastle in 1592-4. Sometimes players worked with musicians, tumblers or rope-dancers; of course this was so in London itself, but naturally the old methods of the mimes tended to reassert themselves more markedly in the provinces.

[1006] Murray, i. 172 (table), 237.

[1007] Henslowe's agreement with John Cholmley, probably for the Rose, in 1587, provides for joint appointment by the parties as landlords. The same arrangement is implied, so far as the galleries are concerned, by the Lady Elizabeth's agreement of 1614. In 1612 Robert Browne wrote to Alleyn to procure 'a gathering place' for the wife of one Rose, a hireling of Prince Henry's men. Apparently the sharers had to pay the gatherers' wages. An undated letter from William Bird, also of Prince Henry's men, to Alleyn tells him of the dishonesty of John Russell, 'that by yowr apoyntment was made a gatherer with us'. The company will not let him 'take the box', but will pay his wages as 'a nessessary atendaunt on the stage', and if he likes, employ him also as a tailor. Henslowe made the Lady Elizabeth's pay for nine gatherers more than he was entitled to. In Frederick and Basilea, the gatherers came on as supers (Henslowe Papers, 3, 24, 63, 85, 89, 137). The 'place or priviledge' in the Globe and Blackfriars left by Henry Condell to Elizabeth Wheaton in 1627 was presumably that of a gatherer. A satirist wrote in The Actors Remonstrance of 1643 (Hazlitt, E. D. S. 263), 'Our very doore-keepers men and women most grievously complaine that by this cessation they are robbed of the privilege of stealing from us with licence: they cannot now, as in King Agamemnon's dayes, seeme to scratch their heads where they itch not, and drop shillings and half croune-pieces in at their collars'. The money taken at the door or in the gallery was traditionally put in a box and kept for division; cf. Rankins, Mirrour of Monsters (1587), f. 6, 'door-keepers and box-holders at plays'.

[1008] Cf. ch. xvi (Globe) and ch. xvii (Blackfriars); the document is printed in Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 312.

[1009] This is the only point on which I have anything to add to Dr. Greg's personal information as to Henslowe; it is important as bearing on the history of Lord Strange's men (q.v.). He is described as Groom of the Chamber in an undated document (Henslowe Papers, 42) belonging to a series dealing with the opening of the Rose for Strange's men in a long vacation. This cannot be put later than 1592, as there was plague throughout the long vacation of 1593 and Lord Strange became Earl of Derby in Sept. 1593. On the other hand, Dr. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 9; Henslowe Papers, 36), following Warner, 8, argues that Henslowe must have become Groom of the Chamber later than 7 April 1592, since he is not named in a list of Grooms appended to a warrant of that date and is named in a similar list of 26 Jan. 1599. These warrants are in Addl. MS. 5750, ff. 114, 116. They are original warrants for the 'watching liveries' which were issued annually, but on irregular dates, to the Yeomen of the Guard and to the Groom Porter and fourteen Grooms of the Chamber. A complete series of copies of these warrants is preserved in Lord Chamberlain's Records, v. 90, 91, and shows that Henslowe only received a watching livery during three consecutive years, on 14 Nov. 1597, 26 Jan. 1599, and 27 Oct. 1599. Yet we know that he was a Groom in Aug. 1593 from the address on one of Alleyn's letters (Henslowe Papers, 36), and about 1595-6 from a petition to the first Lord Hunsdon, who died in June 1596 (Henslowe Papers, 44). Therefore the absence of his name from the livery list of 7 April 1592 is no proof that he was not then already a Groom. Probably Henslowe was only an Extraordinary Groom, and only some of the Extraordinary Grooms were needed to supplement the twelve Ordinary ones for watching purposes.

[1010] Dr. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 22, 25) shows that Henslowe almost certainly held a lease of the Barge, the Bell, and the Cock 'vppon the banke called Stewes', describes these houses as 'licensed brothels', and infers that Henslowe was 'the intermediate landlord between the stew-keepers and the Reverend Father in God, the Lord Bishop of Winchester'. It is possible that the tradition, as well as the name, of the district endured into Elizabeth's reign, but Dr. Greg forgets, in his Voltairean mood, that the system of episcopal licences terminated in the reign of Henry VIII (Rendle, Bankside, xi). Ultimately Alleyn secured on the property the settlement of his wife Constance, daughter of John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, which must surely have established its respectability.

[1011] Henslowe, i. 98, 'Jemes Cranwigge the 4 of November 1598 playd his callenge in my howsse & I sholde haue hade for my parte xxxxˢ which the company hath receuyd & oweth yᵗ to me'.

[1012] Cf. vol. ii, p. 408.

[1013] Cf. Gosson, S.A. 39 (App. C, No. xxii), 'the very hyrelings of some of our players, which stand at reuersion of vi s by the weeke'; Dekker, News from Hell (Works, ii. 146), 'a companie of country players, being nine in number, one sharer, & the rest iornymen'; The Raven's Almanac (iv. 193), 'a number of you (especially the hirelings) shall be with emptie purses at least twice a week'; Jests to Make you Merrie (ii. 353), 'Nay, you mercenary soldiers, or you that are as the Switzers to players (I meane the hired men) by all the prognostications that I haue seene this yeare, you make but a hard and a hungry liuing of it by strowting [? 'strowling'] up and downe after the waggon. Leaue therefore, O leaue the company of such as lick the fat from your beards (if you haue any) and come hether, for here I know you shall be sharers'.

[1014] Cf. Chapman, May Day, III. iii. 228, 'Afore heaven, 'tis a sweet fac'd child: methinks he would show well in woman's attire.... I'll help thee to three crownes a week for him, and she can act well'. The will of Augustine Phillips in 1605 mentions his apprentice James Sands, and his late apprentice, Samuel Gilburne. The 'boys' of various Admiral's men appear in Henslowe's diary and in the Dulwich 'plots' of plays; cf. Henslowe, i. 71, 73, 'Thomas Dowtones biger boy'; Henslowe Papers, 137, 138, 142, 147, 'E. Dutton his boye', 'Mʳ. Allens boy', 'Mʳ. Townes boy', 'Mʳ. Jones his boy', 'Mʳ. Denygtens little boy'.

[1015] Henslowe, i. 201; Henslowe Papers, 48. There is also a contract by which Thomas Downton of the Admiral's men hires an unnamed player (Henslowe, i. 40). Augustine Phillips (1605) calls Christopher Beeston his 'servant', and Nicholas Tooley (1623) calls Richard Burbadge, then deceased, his 'late master'. But Beeston and Tooley were King's men by patent before the dates in question, and it is a little difficult, though not impossible, to suppose that a hireling would appear in a patent. Probably the terms only retain the memory of former apprenticeships.

[1016] Henslowe, ii. 120.

[1017] The diary records loans to Jonson, Chapman, Porter, Chettle, Day, Haughton, Munday, Dekker, Anthony Wadeson, and Robert Wilson, and to the actors Martin Slater, John Singer, Thomas Towne, Edward Dutton, Robert Shaw, Thomas Downton, William Borne, John Helle, Gabriel Spencer, Richard Alleyn, John Tomson, Humphrey Jeffes, Anthony Jeffes, Richard Jones, Charles Massey, John Duke, Richard Bradshaw, Thomas Heywood, William Kempe, Thomas Blackwood, John Lowin, Abraham Savery, Richard Perkins; as well as to Henslowe's nephew, Francis Henslowe. Except Francis Henslowe and Abraham Savery, of the Queen's men, and John Tomson, of whom nothing is known, all these men are traceable in connexion with either the Admiral's or Worcester's men. A few of the loans to poets, e.g. to Chettle, seem to have been on behalf of the Admiral's men, rather than of Henslowe himself.

[1018] Henslowe, i. 47, 63, 67, 'Rᵈ. of Bengemenes Johnsones share as ffoloweth'; 'Rᵈ. of Gabrell Spencer at severall tymes of his share in the gallereyes as foloweth'; 'A juste acownte of the money which I haue receued of Humfreye Jeaffes hallffe sheare ... as foloweth.... This some was payd backe agayne vnto the companey of my lord admeralles players ... & they shared yt amonste them'. In such cases Henslowe may merely have acted as agent of the company in securing the payment out of gallery money of sums due from incoming sharers.

[1019] Henslowe Papers, 18, 23, 86, 111, 123; cf. ch. xiii (Lady Elizabeth's).

[1020] Cf. p. 375.

[1021] Henslowe, ii. 19.

[1022] Henslowe Papers, 90, 93; cf. ch. xiii (Prince Charles's).

[1023] Henslowe Papers, 67, 70.

[1024] Henslowe, ii. 19.

[1025] Similar methods were employed by Henslowe's rival, Francis Langley, at the Swan (q.v.) in 1597. He provided apparel for a company, and was allowed for it out of their 'moytie of the gains for the seuerall standinges in the galleries of the said howse which belonged to them'. Having quarrelled with the company before he was completely reimbursed, he kept the apparel. He took individual bonds to play with him for three years, released some of the company from their bonds, and sued the rest, who could not play without their fellows, for breach of contract.

[1026] J. Hall, Virgedemiarum (1597), i. 3, appears to satirize performances by amateurs 'upon a hired stage'; cf. p. 361.

[1027] Similarly in Keysar v. Burbadge (1610) the pleadings of Robert Keysar grossly exaggerated the profits of the Blackfriars.

[1028] Cf. ch. vii.

[1029] Cf. App. B.

[1030] Variorum, iii. 266.

[1031] Lee, 315; cf. A. Thaler, Shakespeare's Income (S. P. xv. 82), who halves Lee's estimate.

[1032] In 1628 Sir Henry Herbert notes in his office-book (Variorum, iii. 176), 'The Kinges company with a general consent and alacritye [poor devils! E. K. C.] have given mee the benefitt of too dayes in the yeare, the one in summer, thother in winter, to bee taken out of the second daye of a revived playe, att my owne choyse. The housekeepers have likewyse given their shares, their dayly charge only deducted, which comes to some 2ˡ 5ˢ. this 25 May, 1628.' Herbert words it oddly, but the 'dayly charge' must be that of the sharers, not the housekeepers, who had none, and the estimate agrees fairly with that of 1635. Herbert took during 1628-33 sums of from £1 5s. to £6 7s., averaging £4 8s. 6d., out of five performances at the Globe, and £9 16s. to £17 10s., averaging £13 10s., from five performances at the Blackfriars. The gross takings averaged therefore £6 13s. 6d. at the Globe and £15 15s. at the Blackfriars. In 1633 Herbert compounded for a payment of £10 at Christmas and £10 at Midsummer. But in 1662 (Variorum, iii. 266) he included amongst the incomings of his office the profits of a summer's day and a winter's day at the Blackfriars, which he valued at £50 each.

[1033] Cf. p. 363 and ch. xiii (Admiral's).

[1034] Cf. W. W. Greg in T. L. S. (12 Feb. 1920) and his analysis of the Dulwich 'plots' (H. P. 152). Here also we find the tireman, gatherers, and attendants used as 'supers'.

[1035] Puttenham, i. 14, says that Roscius 'brought vp these vizards, which we see at this day vsed'. In The Longer Thou Livest, 1748, 1796, God's Judgement has 'a terrible visure' and Confusion 'an ill fauowred visure', and in All For Money, 389, 1440, 1462, Damnation, Judas, and Dives have vizards. But this is early evidence, and perhaps drawn from the private stage. Harington, Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596, An Anatomy, 5), speaks of 'an ill-favoured vizor, such as I have seen in stage plays, when they dance Machachinas', but this rather tells against the use by ordinary actors at that date.

[1036] Women only began to act regularly at the Restoration; cf. Ward, iii. 253. There had been occasional earlier examples; even in 1611 Coryat, Crudities, i. 386, says that at Venice 'I saw women acte, a thing that I never saw before, though I have heard that it hathe beene sometimes used in London'. The exceptions are, I think, such as prove the rule; private plays such as Hymen's Triumph, Venner's gulling show of England's Joy, the Italian tumblers of 1574, the virago Moll Frith at the Fortune (cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Dekker, Roaring Girl). On 22 Feb. 1583 Richard Madox 'went to the theater to see a scurvie play set out al by one virgin, which there proved a fyemarten without voice, so that we stayed not the matter' (Cotton MSS. App. xlvii, f. 6ᵛ; cf. S. P. Colonial, E. Indies, 221). As to the skill of the boys, cf. Ben Jonson on Richard Robinson in The Devil is an Ass, II. viii. 64.

[1037] Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 316.

[1038] Cf. ch. xvi (Swan).

[1039] Cf. ch. xiii (Admiral's).

[1040] Cf. ch. vii.

[1041] Cf. ch. xiii (Admiral's).

[1042] Cf. the account of Platter in 1599 (ch. xvi, introduction); also Donne, Satire, iv. 180 (ed. Muses' Library, ii. 196):

As fresh and sweet their apparels be, as be

The fields they sold to buy them. 'For a king

Those hose are,' cry the flatterers; and bring

Them next week to the theatre to sell;

and Jonson, Underwoods, xxxii:

Is it for these that Fine-man meets the street

Coached, or on foot-cloth, thrice changed every day,

To teach each suit he has the ready way

From Hyde Park to the stage, where at the last

His dear and borrowed bravery he must cast.

[1043] Cf. App. C, Nos. xxx, xlvi; Case Is Altered, ii. 4, 'Theatres! ay, and plays too, both tragedy and comedy, and set forth with as much state as can be imagined'; cf. Graves, 68.

[1044] Cf. chh. xx, xxi passim, and Henslowe Papers, 113.

[1045] Wegener, 135.

[1046] Henslowe Papers, 117, 'j lyone skin; j beares skyne ... j dragon in fostes [Faustus] j lyone; ij lyone heades; j great horse with his leages; j black dogge'. For brown paper monsters, cf. App. C, Nos. xxii, xxx, and for a controversy as to the use of live animals, ch. xx.

[1047] E. Hoe, IV. ii. 92, 'thy name shall be written upon conduits, and thy deeds plaid i' thy lifetime by the best companies of actors, and be call'd their get-peny'; Barth. Fair, V. i. 13 (of a 'motion'), 'the Gunpowder-plot, there was a get-peny! I haue presented that to an eighteene, or twenty pence audience, nine times in an afternoone'. Dekker, News from Hell (1606, Works, ii. 146), speaks of 'a Cobler of Poetrie called a play-patcher'.

[1048] Henslowe, ii. 115; cf. ch. x. By the end of Sir Henry Herbert's time the fee had been raised to £2; even for an old play he exacted £1 (Variorum, iii. 266).

[1049] C. IS A. I. i.

[1050] Henslowe, i. 113, 136 (Admiral's, 1599, 1601), 181 (Worcester's, 1602), 'for Mʳ. Mundaye & the reste of the poets at the playnge of Sʳ John Oldcastell the ferste tyme' [in margin, 'as a gefte']; 'John Daye ... after the playinge of the 2 part of Strowde'; 'Thomas Deckers ... over & above his price of his boocke called A Medysen for a Cvrste Wiffe'. These are exceptional disbursements. The Daborne-Henslowe correspondence of 1613-14 (Henslowe Papers, 71, 75, 76, 82) suggests a more regular practice: 'I pay you half my earnings in the play'; 'We will hav but twelv pownds and the overplus of the second day'; 'You shall hav the whole companies bonds to pay you the first day of my play being playd'; 'I desyr you should disburse but 12ˡ a play till they be playd'. Probably the actual day selected for the poet's benefit varied; thus the third day is suggested by Dekker's prologue to If It be not Good, the Devil is in It (1612), a Red Bull play:

not caring, so he gains

A cram'd third day, what filth drops from his brains.

Malone (Variorum, iii. 157) quotes later evidence for a variation of days, together with Davenant, The Play-house to be Let:

There is an old tradition,

That in the times of mighty Tamberlane,

Of conjuring Faustus and the Beauchamps bold,

You poets used to have the second day.

This shall be ours, sir, and tomorrow yours.

The actual term 'benefit' appears first in connexion with the interest of the Master of the Revels (cf. p. 370), not that of the poet. Nor do we know what exactly the 'overplus' assigned to the poet was calculated upon.

[1051] B. Fair, V. iii. 30, 'What, doe you not know the Author, fellow Filcher? you must take no money of him; he must come in gratis: Mʳ. Littlewit is a voluntary; he is the Author'.

[1052] Henslowe, i. 83, 100, 101, 107, 119 (Admiral's, 1598-1600), 'to disecharge Mʳ. Dicker owt of the cownter in the Powltrey'; 'Harey Chettell to paye his charges in the Marshallsey'; 'to descarge Thomas Dickers frome the areaste of my lord chamberlens men'; 'to descarge Harey Chettell of his areste from Ingrome'; 'Wᵐ Harton to releace hime owt of the Clyncke'; also Henslowe, i. 103, 165 (Admiral's, 1599, 1602), 'Harey Porter ... gaue me his faythfulle promysse that I shold haue alle the boockes which he writte ether him sellfe or with any other'; 'at the sealleynge of H. Chettells band to writte for them'.

[1053] Henslowe Papers, 67; cf. ch. xiii (Lady Elizabeth's).

[1054] Henslowe, ii. 20.

[1055] Lodge, Scillaes Metamorphosis (1589):

by oath he bound me

To write no more of that whence shame doth grow,

Or tie my pen to Pennie-knaves delight.

[1056] The pun on 'comoedians' and 'camoelions' had been made by 'certayne gentlemen' against the Duttons as early as 1580; cf. ch. xiii (Warwick's). It is still in use in Ratseis Ghost (1605); cf. p. 340, n. 2.

[1057] The Aesopic allusion is complicated by another to the story in Macrobius, Saturnalia, ii. 4, 30, perhaps based on Martial, xiv. 73, of the cobbler who tried to teach a crow to say 'Ave Caesar' in flattery of Augustus after the battle of Actium; cf. Mr. McKerrow's note to Nashe's Pierce Penilesse (Works, iv. 105). Both ideas are suggested in Nashe's Menaphon preface, and Greene, in Francescos Fortunes (App. C, No. xliii), combines them with a third story, also due, perhaps through Cornelius Agrippa (App. C, No. xii), to Macrobius (Sat. III. xiv. 12), of a debate on the respective powers of orator and actor between Cicero and Roscius, into an obviously apocryphal jest: 'Cicero. Why Roscius, art thou proud with Esops Crow, being pranct with the glory of others feathers? Of thy selfe thou canst say nothing, and if the Cobler hath taught thee to say Aue Caesar, disdain not thy tutor, because thou pratest in a kings chamber.' Fleay, i. 258, chooses to identify the cobbler with Marlowe and Roscius with Robert Wilson, and (being ignorant of Macrobius) cites the use of the phrase 'Ave Caesar' in Edward III, I. i. 164, which he ascribes to Marlowe, as evidence. Such equations are always hazardous. The point of the passage is in the indebtedness of the players as a body to the poets as a body. If any individual actor were designated as Roscius about 1590, it would be more likely to be Alleyn than another; the compliment to him is not unusual later (cf. ch. xv). But he had hardly a monopoly of the name; and in the present case there is really no reason to suppose that Greene had any individual in mind, other than the historical Roscius. The name is given to Ostler (q.v.) in 1611, and was in common generic use for a player; cf. e.g. Marston, Satires (1598), ii. 42:

That fair-framed piece of sweetest poesy,

Which Muto put between his mistress' paps ...

Was penned by Roscio the tragedian;

and Scourge of Villainy (1598), xi. 40:

Say who acts best? Drusus or Roscio?

Similarly Fleay, ii. 279, has no real ground for supposing that the player in the Groatsworth of Wit is Wilson in particular. If, again, any individual is meant, it might just as well be James Burbage. Throughout Fleay is inclined to exaggerate the extent of the theatrical references in the pamphlets of Greene and Nashe. But R. Simpson is much worse in his hopelessly uncritical Introduction to Faire Em in The School of Shakspere, ii. 339, which is an attempt to trace a vendetta against the actors and especially Shakespeare as a main motive in Greene's writing from 1584 onwards. As far as I can see, Greene's attacks on the stage are limited to the three pamphlets named in the text, and Nashe's to the Menaphon preface. It is doubtful whether Greene was writing for the stage at all before about 1590; in any case it may be assumed that neither writer was normally engaged in tilting against his paymasters.

[1058] Cuthbert Conny-Catcher, The Defence of Conny-Catching (1592, Greene, Works, xi. 75), 'What if I should prove you a Conny-Catcher, Maister R. G. would it not make you blush at the matter?... Aske the Queens Players, if you sold them not Orlando Furioso for twenty Nobles, and when they were in the country sold the same Play to the Lord Admirals men for as much more. Was not this plaine Conny-Catching, Maister R. G.?... But I hear, when this was objected, you made this excuse; that there was no more faith to be held with players than with them that valued faith at the price of a feather; for as they were comedians to act, so the actions of their lives were Camelion-like; that they were uncertain, variable, time-pleasers, men that measured honesty by profit, and that regarded their authors not by desert, but by necessity of time.'

[1059] Dekker, Jests to Make you Merrie (1607, Works, ii. 303, 352), 'As proud as a player that feedes on the fruité of diuine poetry (as swine on acorns).... O you that are the Poets of these sinfull times, ouer whome the Players haue now got the vpper hand, by making fooles of the poore country people, in driuing them like flockes of geese to sit cackling in an old barne: and to swallow downe those playes for new which here euery punck and her squire (like the interpreter and his poppet) can rand out by heart they are so stale, and therefore so stincking; I know the Lady Pecunia and you come very hardly together, & therefore trouble not you'; cf. his references to 'strowlers' in note to p. 332. Another seventeenth-century critic is H[enry] P[arrot], Laquei Ridiculosi or Springes for Woodcocks (1613), Epig. 131, Theatrum Licentia:

Cotta's become a player most men know,

And will no longer take such toyling paines;

For here's the spring (saith he) whence pleasures flow

And brings them damnable excessive gaines:

That now are cedars growne from shrubs and sprigs,

Since Greene's Tu Quoque and those Garlicke Jigs.

[1060] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 194, 214. For Elizabethan school-plays at Shrewsbury, cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Ashton. Murray, ii. 204, 216, 243, 324, 364, 382, records plays by schoolboys or other children at Bath (1602), Bristol (1594), Coventry (1601-2), Ludlow (1562, 1575-6), Norwich (1564-5), Plymouth (Totnes boys, 1564-74).

[1061] Poetaster, III. iv. 344, 'O, it will get vs a huge deale of money, Captaine, and wee haue need on't; for this winter ha's made vs all poorer, then so many staru'd snakes: No bodie comes at vs; not a gentleman, nor a ——.'

[1062] Hamlet, II. ii. 339. This is the Folio text. The Second Quarto omits all but the first ten lines, but that there was some reference to the children in the original version of the play, the date of which may be 1601, is shown by the First Quarto text:

Hamlet. How comes it that they trauell? Do they grow restie?

Gilderstone. No my lord, their reputation holds as it was wont.

Hamlet. How then?

Gilderstone. Yfaith my Lord, noueltie carries it away,

For the principali publike audience that

Came to them, are turned to private playes,

And to the humour of children.

[1063] The main interest of the 'war of the theatres', or 'Poetomachia' as Dekker, Satiromastix, Epist. 10, calls it, is for literature and biography, rather than for stage-history. I refer to it under the plays concerned in chh. xxiii, xxiv, and can only add a brief summary here. The treatment of R. A. Small, The Stage Quarrel (1899), is excellent, and may be supplemented by H. C. Hart's papers, Gabriel Harvey, Marston and Ben Jonson (9 N. Q. xi. 201, 281, 343, 501; xii. 161, 263, 342, 403, 482) and On Carlo Buffone (10 N. Q. i. 381), while the less critical view, partly derived from Fleay, of J. H. Penniman, The War of the Theatres (1897), is revised in his edition of Poetaster and Satiromastix. The protagonists are Jonson and Marston, with whom became allied Dekker. Daniel and many others, whose names have been brought under discussion, do not seem to have been really concerned. Jonson himself tells us, in the Apologetical Dialogue, probably written late in 1601, to Poetaster that 'three yeeres, They did provoke me with their petulant stiles On every stage'. This takes us to 1599, up to which year there is no just ground for suggesting any conflict between Jonson and Marston. Jonson may then have taken offence at Marston's portrait of him, intended to be complimentary, as Chrisoganus in Histriomastix. In the same year he criticized Marston's style in E. M. O. In 1600 Marston satirized Jonson as Brabant Senior in Jack Drum's Entertainment, and in 1601 as Lampatho Doria in What You Will. Jonson in turn brought Marston into Poetaster (1601) as Crispinus, and added Dekker as Demetrius. Dekker retorted a month or two later with his caricature of Jonson as Horace in Satiromastix. Some unascertained part in the 'purge' given to Jonson is ascribed in 3 Parnassus (1601) to Shakespeare. Jonson and Marston seem to have been reconciled by 1603; but the dispute had not been merely a paper one, for Jonson, Conversations, 11, 20, claims that he 'beat Marston, and took his pistol from him'.

[1064] Small, 67, has an excellent analysis of Histriomastix. He dates it in 1596, but not convincingly. It might just as well be 1588-90. The text is in R. Simpson, The School of Shakespeare, ii. 1, and needs re-editing. Moreover, Simpson thought that Posthaste was Shakespeare. The actor-scenes are i. 112-62; ii. 70-147, 188-344; iii. 179-243, 265-78; iv. 159-201; v. 61-102, 238-43; vi. 187-240. Of these I think that ii. 247-80; iii. 179-217, 265-78 may belong to the Marstonian revision.

[1065] Cf. Hamlet, II. ii. 415, 'The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited'.

[1066] Poetaster, III. iv; IV. iv; V. iii. 108-38.

[1067] Can the Aesop episode be a reminiscence of the part played by Augustine Phillips in the Essex innovation? Cf. vol. ii, p. 205.

[1068] 2 Return from Parnassus, iv. 3; v. 1.

[1069] In certain other plays which have actors amongst their dramatis personae (e.g. Midsummer-Night's Dream and Middleton's Mayor of Queenborough) the point is reversed, and it is the regular companies who satirize provincial companies or amateurs.

[1070] Thus in 1618 the Mayor of Exeter complained of a company travelling under Daniel's patent for the Children of Bristol (q.v.) that, though the patent was for children, the company consisted of men, with only five youths amongst them.

[1071] Cf. ch. xii, introduction.

[1072] Cf. App. C, No. lviii.

[1073] Murray, ii. 235, 400, 410.

[1074] Ibid. 199, 231, 264, 312, 341, 384, &c.

[1075] The Order was appended to A Declaration of the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament, For the appeasing and quietting of all unlawfull Tumults and Insurrections in the severall Counties of England, and Dominion of Wales (1642). The whole pamphlet is facsimiled in J. Knight's edition of J. Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (1886).

[1076] Hazlitt, E. D. S. 65.

[1077] Wright, Historia Histrionica, 409, 411.

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Transcriber's Notes:

P. [xvii] 'Litteratur' changed to 'Literatur'.

P. [xxxiii] 'Antient' changed to 'Ancient'.

P. [xxxiv] 'O. S.' changed to 'C. S.'.

P. [xxxviii]. 'Smith' changed to 'Strype'; moved alphabetically.

P. [xxxix] 'Stow' changed to 'Stowe'.

Footnote numbers that were left off are added on pages [95]-[97].

P. [315]. Added missing footnote number.

P. [330]. Added missing footnote number.

P. [363]. Added missing footnote number.

Corrected various punctuation.