[65] R. Henry, Hist. of Great Britain3, xii. 457; Brewer, ii. 873; iii. 364; iv. 868; Fee Lists (passim); Wallace, i. 21, 23, 24, 26, 33, 61, from patents and Exchequer of Receipt, Auditor’s Privy Seal Books. The Elizabethan fee for a Gentleman was only £30 (cf. p. 41, n. 3), but it was increased again to £40 by James in 1604 (Rimbault, 61).
[66] H. O. 169, 212. The Chamber Accounts for Aug. 1520 include a special payment to the Master for the diets of the boys when they accompanied the King to Calais, at 2d. a day each.
[67] The allowance was 6d. in 1575 (Collier, i. 175; Nagel, 29; from Harl. MS. 589, f. 220), but Hunnis’s petition of 1583 (cf. p. 37) implies that this rate was customary before Elizabeth’s reign.
[68] Chamber Accounts (passim); cf. p. 24, n. 6. For the feast of the Boy Bishop on St. Nicholas Day, cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 336, 359, 369.
[69] Stopes, 15, ‘40 surplices for the gentlemen and 16 for the children of the Chapel’ (Wardrobe warrant of 7 Oct. 1533); ‘for 10 children of the Kings Chapell, for gownes of Tawney Chamblett lined with black satin of Bruges, and Milan bonnettes for the said children, as in the same boke of apparel is declared xliiili. iiis. iiiid. For two children of the Kings Chapell, for 2 gownes of Black Chamblett, lined with black satin of Bruges 2 cotes of yellow saten of Bruges lined with Coton, and 2 Millan bonnettes, and for making and lining of said gownes and cotes as in the said boke at large it duly apperes xli xviiis ... Item for twenty gentlemen of the King’s chapel, for 20 gownes of Black Damask for the said gentlemen, cxxviili. xs.’ (Queen’s Remembrancia, Wardrobe Expenses, Hen. VIII, 52/10 A).
[70] Chamber Accounts (passim). From 1510 to 1513 Robert Fairfax had 2s. a week for the diet of William Alderson and Arthur Lovekyn, the King’s scholars, and £2 13s. 4d. for their teaching. In 1513 William Max, late a Child of the Chapel, had 40s. In 1514 Cornish was finding and apparelling Robert Philip and another Child of the Chapel, for £1 13s. 4d. a quarter, and in 1517 finding and teaching William Saunders, late Child of the Chapel, for the same sum, with 2d. a week for board ‘when the king keepeth no household’. In 1529–30 Crane had 3d. a day wages and 20d. a week board wages for Robert Pery, and in 1530 also for William Pery. In 1531 Robert Pery was paid direct. Cunningham, xx, gives a late seventeenth-century example of a similar arrangement. In 1546 a royal letter was written for the appointment of William Bretten, late a Chapel boy, to be singing-man at Lichfield (Brewer, xxi. 1. 142). Some of the above names appear in a list of Chapel Children, William Colman, William Maxe, William Alderson, Henry Meryell, John Williams, John Graunger, Arthur Lovekyn, Henry Andrewe, Nicholas Ivy, Edward Cooke, and James Curteys, receiving liveries at the funeral of Henry VII in 1509 (Lafontaine, 3, from Ld. Ch. Records, 550, f. 131). Some amusing correspondence of 1518 relates to a boy Robin, whom Henry VIII wished to transfer from Wolsey’s chapel to his own. It was stipulated that Cornish should treat him honestly, ‘otherwise than he doth his own’, and later Cornish wrote praising the clean singing and descant of the recruit (Brewer, ii. 1246–50).
[71] J. M. Manly in C. H. vi. 279; C. Johnson, John Plummer (1921, Antiquaries Journal, i. 52); Wallace, i. 21, from patents and Exchequer payments. Wallace does not include Melyonek although (ii. 62) he gives the following commission, already printed by Collier, i. 41, and Rimbault, vii, from Harl. MS. 433, f. 189:
‘Mellenek, Ric. etc. To all and every our subgiettes aswele spirituell as temporell thise our lettres hering or seeing greeting, We let you wite that for the confidence & trust that we haue in our trusty and welbeloued seruant John Melyonek oon of ye gentilmen of our Chapell and knowing also his expert habilitie and connyng in ye science of Musique haue licenced him and by thise presentes licence and geue him auctorite that within all places in this our realme aswele Cathedral churges coliges chappells houses of relegion and al oyer franchised & exempt places as elliswhere our colege roial at Wyndesor reserued & except may take and sease for vs and in our name al suche singing men & childre being expart in the said science of Musique as he can finde and think sufficient and able to do vs seruice. Wherfor &c. Yeuen &c. at Nottingham the xvjth day
Banaster did not die until 1487, but I think Melyonek must have replaced him, perhaps without a patent, under Richard III.]
[72] Cf. D. N. B. Songs by Banaster and Newark are in Addl. MS. 5465 (Chambers and Sidgwick, Early English Lyrics, 299).