It was part of the business of the Master of the Children to instruct his young charges in "grammar, songes, organes, and other vertuous things"; and, on the whole, the lot of the choristers might have been deemed enviable. It is evident, however, that it was not always regarded in that light, for a custom existed of impressing children. This practice was authorized by a precept of Henry VI. in 1454, and one of its victims was Thomas Tusser, afterwards author of "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry," who thus alludes to the matter:
There for my voice I must (no choice)
Away of force, like posting horse;
For sundry men had placards then
Such child to take.
Moreover, it has been shrewdly suspected that the whipping-boy, who vicariously atoned for the sins of a prince of the blood—in other words, was thrashed, when he did wrong—was picked from the Children of the Chapel. Certainly Charles I. had such a whipping-boy named Murray; and judging from this instance the expedient was not commended by its results.
Members of the choir were expected to be persons of exemplary life and conversation, to ensure which state of things there was a weekly visitation by the Dean. Every Friday he sought out and avoided from office "all rascals and hangers upon thys courte." The tone of discipline, to conclude from the poems of Hugh Rhodes, was undoubtedly high; and, whatever difficulties he may have encountered in training the boys to his own high standards, his "Book of Nurture" must always possess considerable value as a reflex of the moral and social ideals of a Master of the Children in the sixteenth century.
Rhodes's successor in the days of Elizabeth was Richard Edwards, a man of literary taste and the compiler of a "Paradise of Dainty Devices." The Master had now a salary of forty pounds a year; the Gentlemen nineteen pence a day, in addition to board and clothing; and the Children received largesse at high feasts and on occasions when their services were used for purposes apart from their ordinary duties. In this way the Chapel Royal is closely connected with the rise of the English drama. Edwards wrote light pieces for the children to act before Her Majesty, and, encouraged by success, fell to composing set comedies, which were also performed by the boys, under his instructions, in the presence of the Court.
We have limited our retrospect mainly to the Tudor period. As an extension of the subject would call for more space than we have at our disposal, those who desire more information concerning the "Children of the Chapel" will do well to consult a recent work entitled "The King's Musick" (edited by H. C. de Lafontaine: Novello & Co.), which carries on the record into the age of the Stuarts. Entries cited in this excellent compilation relate to eminent English composers. In December, 1673, for example, there was a "warrant to pay Henry Purcell, late one of the children of his Majesty's Chappell Royall, whose voyce is changed and gone from the Chappell, the sum of £30 by the year, to commence Michaelmas, 1673." This was in consequence of the sensible custom of retaining as supernumeraries boys who had given evidence of musical ability. Such is certainly true of Purcell, who, at the early age of eleven, had shown promise of his future career by an ode called "The Address of the Children of the Chapel Royal to the King and their Master, Captain Cooke, on His Majestie's Birthday, A.D. 1670, composed by Master Purcell, one of the Children of the said Chapel."