[55] H. O. 10. In 1318 he was ‘chief chapellain’.
[56] J. H. Wylie, Henry IV, iv. 208, from Household Accounts, ‘John Bugby our chaplain retained 3 years ago pur apprendre et enformer les enfants de notre chapelle en la science de gramaire at 100/-p. a. nothing yet paid, £15 due’. A grant to John Tilbery, a boy of the King’s chapel, was made on 12 Nov. 1405 (C. P. R., Hen. IV, iii. 96).
[57] Wallace, i. 12, 21, from P. R. The commission of 1420 was to John Pyamour ‘uni clericorum Capellae hospicii nostri’; another of 1440 was to John Croucher, Dean. When regular Masters were instituted, the commissions seem to have been made direct to them.
[58] Wallace, i. 14, quotes laudatory accounts of the singing of the chapel by two members of the suite of Leo von Ro[vz]mital, a Bohemian who visited the English Court in 1466.
[59] H. O. 49. There is nothing about plays, but ‘Memorandum, that the King hathe a songe before hym in his hall or chambre uppon All-hallowen day at the latter graces, by some of these clerkes and children of chappel in remembrance of Christmasse; and soe of men and children in Christmasse thorowoute. But after the songe on All-hallowen day is done, the Steward and Thesaurere of houshold shall be warned where it liketh the King to kepe his Christmasse’.
[60] At the coronation of James in 1603 (Rimbault, 127) there were a Sub-dean, 7 Ministers, the Master of the Children, an Organist, 22 ordinary Gentlemen, and a Clerk of the Check; also a Sergeant, 2 Yeomen, and a Groom of the Vestry. This agrees with the Elizabethan fee lists, which give the total number of Gentlemen as 32. The coronation list does not name Epistolers; but it is clear from the notices of appointments in Rimbault, 1, that a Gospeller and Epistoler were appointed, as next in succession to the Gentlemen’s places, although it does not appear that they were necessarily ex-Children. There were also Extraordinary Gentlemen (Rimbault, 31).
[61] Cf. ch. ii.
[62] H. O. 160. The hall and chapel are to be kept ‘at all times when his Highnesse shall lye in his castle of Windsor, his mannors of Bewlye, Richmond, Hampton Court, Greenwich, Eltham, or Woodstock’; but ‘in rideing journeys and progresses’, only the Master of the Children, six men, six children, and some officers of the vestry are to attend. In the seventeenth century ‘all removinge weekes’ were amongst the ‘auntient tymes of lyberty and playinge weekes’ (Rimbault, 73). But the practice may have varied. Stopes, 252, gives a Stable warrant of 1554 for a wagon ‘for the necessarie conveying and cariage of the Children of our Chapel and their man from place to place, at such seasons, as they by our commandment shall remove to serve where wee shall appointe them’.
[63] A chapel of St. Stephen existed in 1205. It was rebuilt and made a free collegiate chapel in 1348, and dissolved in 1547, and the building assigned as a chamber for the House of Commons (J. T. Smith, Antiquities of Westminster, 72; V. H. London, i. 566). It may have originated as a domestic chapel, but seems to be quite distinct from the Household Chapel by the sixteenth century. Thus its St. Nicholas Bishop had an old annual reward of £1 from the Exchequer (Devon, Issues of Exchequer, 222; R. Henry, Hist. of Great Britain3, xii. 459; Brewer, iv. 869), while the Household boys got their reward of £6 12s. 4d. from the Treasurer of the Chamber. Wallace, i. 22, notes that the Masters of the Children ‘all lived’ at Greenwich, which suggests that this was the Tudor head-quarters of the Chapel.
[64] Wallace, i. 22, 23, 26, 61, from patents of Masters; Fee List (passim).