[183] Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 317; cf. Hist. Hist. 416 (App. I), ‘Some of the chapel boys, when they grew men, became actors at the Blackfriars; such were Nathan Field and John Underwood’.
[184] The Chamber Accounts record no payment to the company (cf. App. B, introd.).
[185] Cf. ch. xvi.
[186] Murray, i. 361.
[187] E. Ashmole, Institution of the Garter (1672), 127; R. R. Tighe and J. E. Davis, Annals of Windsor, i. 426, 477; Report of Cathedrals Commission (1854), App. 467; V. H. Berks, ii. 106; H. M. C. Various MSS. vii. 10.
[188] Tighe-Davis, ii. 45, from Stowe’s account ‘of the Castell of Wyndsore’ (Harl. MS. 367, f. 13).
[189] Nichols, i. 81, and Collier, i. 170, print a copy in Ashm. MS. 1113, f. 252, from the Elizabethan commission preserved at Windsor, as follows:
‘Elizabeth R.
Whereas our castle of Windsor hath of old been well furnished with singing men and children, We, willing it should not be of less reputation in our days, but rather augmented and increased, declare, that no singing men or boys be taken out of the said chapel by virtue of any commission, not even for our household chapel: and we give power to the bearer of this to take any singing men and boys from any chapel, our own household and St. Paul’s only excepted. Given at Westminster, this 8th of March in the second year of our reign.’
A further copy from Ashm. MS. 1113 is in Addl. MS. 4847, f. 117. Copies or notes of the three earlier commissions are in this MS. and in Ashm. MS. 1124. In Ashm. MS. 1132, f. 169, is a letter of 18 April 1599 from the Chapter to Sir R. Cecil defending their conduct in taking a singing man from Westminster.