The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 4

by E. K. Chambers

CHAMBER ACCOUNTS

The following accounts appear to be extant.

(a) Mediaeval Period.

A few accounts and subsidiary documents of the reigns of Edward II, Edward III, and Richard II are included in the Foreign Accounts on the Great Rolls of the Exchequer (P. R. O. Lists and Indexes, xi. 108, 109), and in the Exchequer Wardrobe and Household Accounts (L. and I. xxxv. 376, 379, 380, 382, 386, 391, 392, 396, 540). The earliest are described, with extracts, by J. C. Davies, The First Journal of Edward II’s Chamber (E. H. R. xxx. 662).

(b) Early Tudor Period.

A number of accounts passed from the Augmentation Office to the Exchequer and were amalgamated in 1839 with others from the office of the King’s Remembrancer in a series of Exchequer Accounts, Various. Here they are numbered 413 to 427. They are mainly accounts of revenue and subsidiary documents, but a few accounts of payments presented to the Record Office by the Trevelyan family have been added to the series, and with them are listed as Wardrobe and Household Accounts (L. and I. xxxv) some other payment accounts from the Miscellaneous Books of the Treasury of Receipt of the Exchequer, and one from the Miscellaneous Books of the Court of Augmentations. Other payment accounts are in the British Museum and in unofficial collections. It may be the case, as Newton, 359, suggests, that these or some of them were abstracted from the Records by officials of antiquarian tastes, but it must be remembered that duplicates even of audited accounts were often kept by the accountants. These accounts are generally known as The King’s Books of Payments. The following can be traced:

i. Accounts of John Heron.

Three Books of Payments, for 1505–9, 1509–18, and 1518–21 respectively, with many royal signatures by way of audit, are now in the P. R. O. (Misc. Books of Treasury of Receipt, 214, 215, 216). The contents of the Henry VIII books are abstracted in Brewer, ii. 1441; iii. 1533. There must once have been an earlier book, for Collier, i. 49, 52, 76, gives extracts from one for 1492–1505, which he describes as ‘formerly in the Chapter-house, Westminster’, as well as from the three now extant, which he describes as ‘in the Chapter-house’. Possibly this was Addl. MS. 21480, which has been traced back (Newton, 359) through the hands of Craven Ord (a friend of Collier) and Thomas Astle to those of Peter Le Neve, a Deputy-Chamberlain of the Exchequer. But Addl. MS. 21481, which also came from Le Neve, is a duplicate of the R. O. books for 1505–18, and therefore Addl. MS. 21480 may only have been a duplicate of the missing volume. Both the Addl. MSS. contain the royal signatures. Craven Ord made some extracts which are now Addl. MSS. 7099, 7100, and to these those supplied by Astle to R. Henry, History of Great Britain, vi (1793), app., and those in S. Bentley, Excerpta Historica (1831), 85, owe their origin. Collier, i. 49, also cites a small book for 1501–2 kept (perhaps under Heron) by one Robert Fowler, which refers to parallel payments made by Thomas Trollop.

ii. Accounts of Brian Tuke.

A book signed monthly by Henry VIII, with some entries from 31 Dec. 1528 to 30 June 1529, but mainly covering the period from 17 Nov. 1529 to 29 Dec. 1532, was printed by N. H. Nicolas from a MS. then in his possession as The Privy Purse Expenses of Henry the Eighth (1827) and misdescribed as an account of the Treasurer of the Household. Presumably this MS. is identical with that owned by Sir O. Bridgeman in 1634 and now Addl. MS. 20030. It overlaps with an account for 1 Oct. 1528 to May 1531, presented by Sir W. C. Trevelyan to the P. R. O. (Exchequer Accounts, Various, 420/11); extracts are given in Trevelyan Papers (C. S.), i. 136, and an abstract in Brewer, v. 303. Collier, i. 116, and Nicolas (ut supra), xxviii, give extracts from an account for Feb. 1538 to June 1541 in the possession of the Royal Society, presumably a duplicate of the account for the same period in Arundel MS. 97, incorrectly catalogued by the B.M. as an account of the Treasurer of the Household, and abstracted in Brewer, xiii. 2. 524; xiv. 2. 303; xvi. 178, 698. An account for May to Sept. 1542 in Stowe MS. 554 is abstracted in Brewer, xvii. 474. Collier, i. 117, gives extracts from an account for 1543–4 in Craven Ord’s collection.

iii. Accounts of William Cavendish.

Account for 31 March 1547 to 31 Sept. 1549, of which extracts are given in Trevelyan Papers, i. 191, ii. 13, were presented by Sir W. C. Trevelyan to the P. R. O. (Exchequer Accounts, Various, 426/5, 6). Misc. Exch. Augm. 439 for 1547–8 is referred to by Newton, 359, as a Chamber account, and is presumably a duplicate.

iv. Account of Edmund Felton.

A Declared Account for 1 Apr. to 31 Dec. 1557 is in D. A. Pipe Office, 541. Stopes, Hunnis, 145, cites a ‘Compotus Marie Rither and Edmond Felton’ for 5 and 6 Edw. VI (Queen’s Remembrancia, 77/5) as a Chamber Account. It is doubtless a Cofferer’s Account.

(c) Elizabethan and Jacobean Periods.

i. Accounts in P. R. O.

The P. R. O. contains Chamber Accounts in four forms. Original Accounts, as submitted for audit, are in Audit Office, Accounts Various, 3/127–9. These are no doubt the ‘very incomplete’ set from which extracts are given by Cunningham, xxvii. So far as play-payments are concerned, they do not appear to be more detailed than the Declared Accounts annually drawn up from them by the auditors, of which there are duplicate sets, both nearly complete, belonging respectively to the Audit Office and to the Pipe Office in the Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer’s Department of the Exchequer. They cover the terms of office of Mason (1558–66), Knollys (1566–70), Heneage (1570–95), Killigrew (1595–6), and Stanhope (1596–1617). From the Pipe Office series I supplemented Cunningham’s extracts in M. L. R. ii (1906), 1; iv (1909), 153, and give a complete record of play-payments below. The payments are also given for 1558–85 from the Audit Office series in Wallace, i (1912), 210, and very imperfectly from the Pipe Office series for 1559–97 in Stopes, Hunnis, 318. Finally, there are Enrolled Accounts in the King’s Remembrancer’s Department (Scargill-Bird¹, liv). A single book for 1569–70 is in the same Department (Exchequer Accounts, Various, 430/15). It appears to be an office book, and has some original signatures by way of receipts for payments.

ii. Accounts in British Museum.

Harl. 1641 and 1642 are duplicates of Heneage’s accounts for 1585–6 and 1593–4 as prepared for audit. Harl. 1644 is an office book, 1581–3, containing signatures by way of receipts for wages and the like.

iii. Accounts in Bodleian.

Rawlinson MS. A. 204, ff. 212, 269, contains duplicates of Stanhope’s accounts for 1604–5 and 1610–11 as prepared for audit, and Rawlinson MSS. A. 239 and 240 (formerly Pepys MSS. 78 and 79) are similar duplicates of his accounts for 1612–13 and 1616–17. They are possibly office drafts, with some notes by a checking officer or an auditor, but are not signed either by accountant or auditors. Occasionally they are slightly more detailed as regards play entries than the Declared Accounts. Thus in 1610–11 and 1612–13 they give some dates of performances instead of the mere number for the season, and in 1612–13 they even give the titles of the plays. Extracts of these titles are given in Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 87, and N. S. S. Trans. (1875–6) 419, and more completely below. Similar entries are given by P. Cunningham in Sh. Soc. Papers, ii. 123, not direct from the manuscript, but from notes taken therefrom by Vertue and Oldys. These had passed, in the case of the Oldys notes through Percy, to Steevens, and from him to Hazlewood, who had copied them, as Oldys and Steevens had done, into an interleaved Langbaine. Malone had already used Vertue’s notes.

I should add that many ‘declarations’ or memoranda on the business of the Treasurer of the Chamber and the state of his finances from time to time are to be found in the Domestic State Papers, in Lansdowne and other B.M. MSS., and in a volume (Lord Steward’s Misc. 301) collected by Sir J. Caesar.