Item, that no garments forseyd, bards, coverying of bards, bassis, or suche lyck, be lent to no man without a specyall comaundment, warrant, or tokyn, from the Kyng's Maiestie, but that all be leyd up in feyr stonderds or pressis, and every presse or stonderd to have two locks a pece, with severall wards, with two keys, the one for the Master or Clarke, and the other for the yoman, so that non of them cum to the stuff without the other.
In Farlyon's time the Revels stuff had been housed at the royal mansion of Warwick Inn in the City.[246] Cawarden moved it in 1547 to the Blackfriars, where various parts of the old Priory buildings served at different times as store-rooms and work-rooms or as residences for the officers.[247] Much material bearing upon the activities of the Revels during 1544-59 is preserved at Loseley Hall, amongst the papers of Cawarden's executor, Sir William More, who also acquired his interest in the Blackfriars. Cawarden lived just long enough to superintend the festivities at Elizabeth's coronation. After his death on 29 August 1559, his offices were distributed.[248] The Mastership of the Tents was given to Henry Sackford of the Privy Chamber. Banqueting houses, however, which had originally been the concern of the Tents, seem now to have been put in charge of the Revels. The Mastership of the Revels was given, by a patent dated 18 January 1560, to Sir Thomas Benger.[249] The Clerk Comptroller and Clerk continued as in former years to be joint officers for the Tents and the Revels. Benger is a somewhat shadowy personage. It is upon record that he gave Elizabeth a ring as a New Year's gift in 1562; that the Westminster boys rehearsed the Heautontimoroumenos and Miles Gloriosus before him in 1564 and spent 6d. on 'pinnes and sugar candee'; that he got a licence to export 300 tons of beer in 1566; that he had players of his own at Canterbury in 1569-70; and that the corporation of Saffron Walden spent 3s. 6d. upon a 'podd' of oysters for him at Elizabeth's visit to Audley End in 1571.[250] Apparently he began his administration with good intentions. The following note is affixed to his first Revels' estimate, that for the Christmas of 1559-60:
'Memorandum, that the chargies for making of maskes cam never to so little a somme [£227 11s. 2d.] as they do this yere, for the same did ever amount, as well in the Quenes Highnes tyme that nowe is, as at all other tymes hertofore, to the somme of £400 alwaies when it was leaste.
'Mᵐ. also, that it may please the Quenes Maᵗᶦᵉ to appoint some of her highnes prevy Counsaile, immediatly after Shroftyde yerely, to survey the state of the saide office, to thintent it may be knowne in what case I fownd it, and how it hathe byn since used.
'Mᵐ. also, that the saide Counsailors may have aucthoritie to appoint suche fees of cast garments as they shall think resonable, and not the Mʳ. to appoint any, as hertofore he hathe done; for I think it most for the Mʳˢ. savegarde so to be used.'[251]
The cast garments were a perquisite of the officers, and were sold by them, doubtless to actors. The change in the Mastership led also to a change in the local habitation of the Revels. It is to be supposed that the buildings with which Cawarden had supplemented the official storehouse were no longer available after they had passed to his executors. In any case, it is clear from the survey of 1586-7 described below that upon Cawarden's death the Office of the Revels was removed to the 'late Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem' in Clerkenwell. Probably the transfer had taken place by 10 June 1560, as an inventory was drawn up on that date of 'certeyne stuff remaynynge in the Black Fryers in London'.[252] The Tents, as well as the Revels, seem to have been moved to St. John's.[253]
In accordance with Benger's request, a survey of the Revels was undertaken, under a warrant from the Privy Council of 27 April 1560, by Sir Richard Sackville and Sir Walter Mildmay, the Under Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a draft of a document submitted to them is preserved at Loseley.[254] This contains a detailed account of the transactions of the Office since the last audit in 1555, as a result of which Cawarden's executors established a claim for a balance or 'surplusage' of £740 13s. 10½d. against the Exchequer. The total expenditure of the Office for the period covering Elizabeth's coronation and first Christmas had been £602 11s. 10d. To the account are appended inventories showing the sets of masking garments which existed in 1555, the materials since issued from the Wardrobe, the use made of both of these in the fashioning of new garments and the 'translation' of old ones, and the sets found in the Office at the time of the survey. These are marked as either 'serviceable' or 'not serviceable' or 'chargeable', but 'fees', and the warrant from the Council instructs the commissioners that cast garments 'being fees incydente to the saide office may be taken by yᵉ Master of yᵉ Revelles & dystributed in soche sorte as haue bene accostomed'. Probably the officers sold them to players.[255] No further detailed accounts are available until the last year of Benger's Mastership, but there are summaries which show an average annual expenditure of about £570.[256] For some reason, there was a great increase of cost in 1571-2, which is the first of a series of years for which elaborate accounts exist in the Record Office. These are of a detailed nature, much like that of Cawarden's accounts at Loseley, and arranged more or less under heads. Schedules of the plays and masks given during the periods to which they relate are in some cases attached. A brief analysis of the account for 1571-2 will show the general character of the entries. I can only dwell here upon those which relate to the organization of the Revels Office, and not upon those of merely dramatic or scenic interest. The main account runs from the end of Shrovetide, 1571, to the end of Shrovetide, 1572, and covers, firstly, a period of nine months from March to November, during which the occupation of the Office was limited to the airing and safeguard of 'stuff' and attendance upon the Master during the progress, and, secondly, an active three months of revels and preparation for revels, from December to February. This expenditure is accounted for under two main heads, Wages and Allowances and Emptions and Provisions. It may be abstracted as follows:
In many cases reference is made to the bills of the tradesmen for further details. At the end of the account is appended a supplementary account, amounting to £26 3s. 2d., for the three months from March to May, 1572, during which a further airing took place. The airings involved an elaborate process of what would now be called the 'spring-cleaning' of all the stuff in the office. There is also a list of six plays and six masks performed during Christmas and Shrovetide. The plays were acted by companies of men or children who were 'apparelled and ffurnished', and provided with 'apt howses, made of canvasse, fframed, ffashioned and paynted accordingly' by the Revels Office. It is noted that the six plays were 'chosen owte of many and ffownde to be the best that then were to be had; the same also being often perused and necessarely corrected and amended by all the afforeseide officers'. Four of the masks were new; the other two 'were but translated and otherwise garnished being of the former number by meanes wherof the chardge of workmanshipp and attendaunce is cheefely to be respected'. It will be observed that the Account does not include any items for the fees of the officers or for the hire of lodgings or storehouses. The former were payable under their patents at the Exchequer, the latter provided in the royal house of St. John's. The officers get an allowance for diet when on active duty, either in the time of airings or in that of revels; and this is fixed, for each day or night, at 4s. for the Master, 2s. for the Clerk Comptroller, 2s. for the Clerk, and 2s. for the Yeoman. There is a similar allowance of 1s. for a Porter, described more fully in a later account as the Porter of St. John's Gate. His name was John Dauncy.[257] The Account discloses some changes in the establishment since 1559. Thomas Blagrave is still Clerk. Richard Lees had been succeeded as Clerk Comptroller on 30 December 1570 by Edward Buggin.[258] During the earlier part of the period John Holt is still Yeoman, but exercises his functions through a deputy, William Bowll, a Yeoman of the Chamber; he was replaced by John Arnold on 11 December 1571.[259] There is a letter to Cecil from William Bowll, written at some date after March 1571, in which he recites that he has recently delivered to Cecil letters from the Lord Treasurer (the Marquis of Winchester), Sir Thomas Benger, and John Holt, for a joint grant of the Yeomanship to himself and John Holt; that he has long served as Holt's deputy and paid him money on a composition as well as meeting some of the debts of the Office; that Holt is now dead and that he and his family will be undone unless Cecil procures him the post.[260] His suit, however, was obviously unsuccessful. Holt's tenure of the Yeomanship had thus extended from 1547 to 1571. He may himself have been an actor, if, as seems likely, he is the 'John Holt, momer', who received rewards for attendance on the Westminster boys at a pageant in 1561.
If Arnold was appointed in the winter of 1571, it was against him, rather than against Holt or his deputy Bowll, that a complaint was lodged with Burghley about a year later by one Thomas Giles. Giles was one of the tradesmen of the Revels. He is described in the Accounts as a haberdasher, and purchases of vizards were made from him. The burden of his complaint was that the officers of the Revels, and particularly the Yeoman, who had the custody of the masking garments, were in the habit of letting these out on hire, to their manifest deterioration, and, one fears, also to the injury of Giles's business. He enumerates twenty-one occasions upon which masks, including the new cloth of gold, black and white, and murrey satin ones, made for the Queen's delectation during the previous Christmas, had been so let out to lords, lawyers, and citizens, in town and country, between January and November 1572.[261]