[210] E. J. L. Scott in Athenaeum (1903), i. 220, from S. P. D. Eliz. xxxvi. 22; Murray, ii. 168.
[211] Observer. Other payments in this or another year were for ‘a haddocke occupied in the plaie’, ‘a thondre barrell’, ‘drawing the tytle of the comedee’.
[212] E. J. L. Scott in Athenaeum (1896), i. 95; (1903) ii. 220; Murray, ii. 168; Observer.
[213] Heywood-Wright, 632; Hazlitt-Warton, iii. 308.
[214] Collins, 215 (1566), ‘Mr Scholemaster towards his charges about the playes laste Christmas, 20/-’; Maxwell-Lyte,4 154 (1566–7) ‘To Mr Scholemaster for his charge setting furthe ij playes 19o Martii, iiil, xiijs, viijd’, (1568–9) ‘For ij dossen of links at iijd the linke for the childrens showes at Christmass, vjs’, (1572–3) ‘For vj poundes of candles at the playes in the Halle, ixd’.
[215] J. W. Hales in Englische Studien, xviii. 408 (cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 452), made the date of 1553–4 seem plausible, but his conjecture that the play was written for the Westminster boys is disposed of by A. F. Leach, who gives Udall’s appointment to Westminster from the Chapter Act Book as 16 Dec. 1555 (Encycl. Brit. s.v. Udall). It might be a Court play of 1553–4, but the parody of the Requiem would have been an indiscretion on Udall’s part at that date.
[216] G. C. Moore Smith (M. L. R. viii. 368) has an ingenious identification of him with the Wrenock of Spenser’s Shepheards Kalendar, xii. 41.
[217] Clode, Hist. of Merchant Taylors Company, i. 235, from Master’s Accounts. Before they opened their own school the Company had plays by the Westminster boys (q.v.).
[218] Clode, i. 234.
[219] The subject may have been Perseus and Andromeda, as the Revels prepared a picture of Andromeda this year. If so, it was probably the same play as that of 23 Feb. 1574.