The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 1

by E. K. Chambers

[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'.