The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 1

by E. K. Chambers

[Sixteenth-century material is collected by A. Feuillerat, Documents relating to the Office of the Revels in the Time of Queen Elizabeth (1908, Materialien, xxi), and Documents relating to the Office of Revels in the Time of Edward VI and Mary (1914, Materialien, xliv), which replace the extracts from Sir Thomas Cawarden's papers in A. J. Kempe, The Loseley Manuscripts (1835), and the report by J. C. Jeaffreson in Hist. MSS. vii. 596 (1879), the Audit Office records in P. Cunningham, Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court (1842), and Sir Henry Herbert's copies of official papers in J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, A Collection of Ancient Documents respecting the Office of Master of the Revels (1870, cited from its running title as Dramatic Records). A study of the documents is contained in A. Feuillerat, Le Bureau des Menus-Plaisirs et la Mise en Scène à la Cour d'Elizabeth (1910). Much of my own Notes on the History of the Revels Office under the Tudors (1906) is incorporated in the present chapter. Cunningham's book is still useful for the seventeenth century; the authenticity of some of his documents is discussed in Appendix B. Of earlier historians of the stage, George Chalmers, Apology for the Believers in the Shakespeare-Papers (1797), deals most fully with the Revels Office; it is matter for regret that Sir George Buck's 'particular commentary' of the 'Art of Revels' has disappeared. In his Supplementary Apology (1799) Chalmers made many extracts from the office books, now apparently lost, of Sir Henry Herbert (1623-73). Others had already been published by Malone (Variorum, iii). These have now been collected with other material, including the later documents from Dramatic Records, in J. Q. Adams, The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert (1917, cited as Herbert).]

ONE of the 'standing' offices which, from the general oversight exercised over them by the Lord Chamberlain, may also be regarded as 'offices outward of the Chamber' was the Revels Office. This, in its fullest establishment, consisted of a Master, a Clerk Comptroller, and a Clerk, whose services it shared with the analogous Office of Tents, a Yeoman, and a Groom. It was of Tudor origin. The first mention of a Master of Revels is in a Household order of 31 December 1494.[232] But the post appears to have been at this period a purely temporary one, conferred upon some existing officer of the Household, who had been selected to supervise and defray the expenses of the revels for a particular feast. Several of these ad hoc Masters are recorded at the court of Henry VIII; the most prominent was Sir Henry Guildford, who held various offices, including that of Comptroller of the Household. The Masters appear to be distinct from the Lords of Misrule, who were also appointed pro hac vice during the Christmas season, but whose duties were ceremonial and quasi-dramatic, rather than administrative.[233] In dealing with the details of Revels organization, the transitory and fluctuating Masters had, from the beginning of the reign, the assistance of a permanent official, who belonged originally to the establishment of the Wardrobe. It was his business to carry into effect the general directions of the Master; to obtain stuffs from mercers or from the Wardrobe itself, and ornaments from the Jewel House and the Mint; to engage architects, carpenters, painters, tailors and embroiderers; to superintend the actual performances in the banqueting-hall or the tilt-yard, and attempt to preserve the costly and elaborate pageants from the rifling of the guests; to have the custody of dresses, visors, and properties; and finally, to render accounts and obtain payment for expenses from the Exchequer. These duties, with others of like character, were long performed by one Richard Gibson, whose careful accounts, compiled in an execrable orthography, preserve many curious details of forgotten pageantries, including the employment of none other than Hans Holbein in the decoration of a banqueting-hall at Greenwich. Gibson had a double qualification for his functions. In addition to his office as Porter and Yeoman Tailor of the Wardrobe, he had been, as far back as 1494, one of the King's players.[234] He had apparently the art of making himself indispensable, for he gradually accumulated both posts and pensions. He held the ancient office of Pavilionary or Serjeant of Tents, and in this capacity made the arrangements for the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. By 1526 he was one of the royal Serjeants-at-Arms.[235] Machyn, who records the burning of his son for heresy at Smithfield in 1557, describes him as 'sergantt Gybsun, sergantt of armes, and of the reywelles, and of the kynges tenstes'.[236] It is not, however, clear that he held a distinct post as Serjeant of Revels, and when a patent was issued to his successor, John Farlyon, in 1534, it was not as Serjeant, but only as Yeoman.[237] Farlyon also became in course of time Serjeant of Tents, and the traditional connexion between Tents and Revels was never wholly broken.

Whether John Travers, who became Serjeant of Tents on Farlyon's death in 1539, had any supervision over John Bridges, who became Yeoman of Revels, is rather doubtful.[238] But the position becomes quite clear in 1545, when the Serjeantship of Tents was converted into a Mastership, and its holder, Sir Thomas Cawarden, was also appointed, under a separate patent of 11 March 1545, to an entirely new post as a permanent Master of the Revels, to whom the Yeoman naturally became subordinate.[239] This continued to be John Bridges until 1550, when he was succeeded by John Holt, who had acted as his deputy since 1547.[240] Cawarden enlarged the establishment by securing the appointment of a Clerk Comptroller to check and of a Clerk to keep the books, thus leaving the Yeoman free to devote himself to the practical side of the business.[241] Both these officers served, and continued throughout our period to serve, alike for the Tents and the Revels. John Barnard was Clerk Comptroller from 1545 to 1550, when he was succeeded by Richard Lees.[242] The first Clerk was Thomas Philipps, who was appointed in 1546, and held his post until 1560.[243] But from 1551 most of the duties were performed by a deputy, Thomas Blagrave, who succeeded to the Clerkship on 25 March 1560.[244] Blagrave was a personal 'servant' of Cawarden, who probably saw to it that all the subordinate officers appointed after the retirement of Bridges were his own nominees. Each, however, held his post under a patent direct from the Crown, and this arrangement bore the promise of administrative complications when the personal relation with the Master had terminated. The following document illustrates the organization of the office as settled by Cawarden about 1546:[245]

Constitucions howe the King's Revells ought to be usyd:

Fyrst, an Invyntory to be made by the Clarke controwler and Clarke, by the Survey and apowentinge of the mastyr of the Revells, Aswell of all and singular masking garments with all thear furnyture, as allso of all bards for horsis, coveryng of bards and bassis of all kynds, with all and singular the appurtenances, which Invytory, subscribyd by the yoman and clarke, ought to remayne in the custody of the Master of the Offyces and the goodes for the saeffe kepyng.

Item, that no kynd of stuff be bowght, but at the apowyentment of the Master or his depute Clarke controwler, being counsell therin, and that he make mencion therof, in his booke of recept which ought to be subscribyd as afforseyd by the Master.

Item, that the Clarke be privey to the cutting of all kynds of garments, and that he make mencion in his booke of thyssuing owt howe moche it takyth of all kynds to every maske, revelle, or tryumph, which boke ought to be subscrybyd as afforseyd by the Master.

Item, that the Clarke kepe check of all daye men working on the premisses, and to make two lyger boks of all wags and provisions of all kynd whate so ever, the one for the paye master and the other for the Master.