Westcott died in 1582, and was succeeded by Thomas Gyles. Shortly after this we find the Children of Paul's acting publicly with the Children of the Chapel Royal at the little theatre in Blackfriars. For them John Lyly wrote his two earliest plays, Campaspe and Sapho and Phao, as the title-pages clearly state. But their stay at Blackfriars was short. When in 1584 Sir William More closed up the theatre there, they fell back upon their singing-school as the place for their public performances.
At the same time the Queen became greatly interested in promoting their dramatic activities. To their master, Thomas Gyles, she issued, in April, 1585, a special commission "to take up apt and meet children" wherever he could find them. It was customary for the Queen to issue such a commission to the masters of her two private chapels, but never before, or afterwards, had this power to impress children been conferred upon a person not directly connected with the royal choristers. Its issuance to Gyles in 1585 clearly indicates the Queen's interest in the Paul's Boys as actors, and her expectation of being frequently entertained by them. And to promote her plans still further, she appointed the successful playwright John Lyly as their vice-master, with the understanding, no doubt, that he was to keep them—and her—supplied with plays. This he did, for all his comedies, except the two just mentioned, were written for the Cathedral Children, and were acted by them at Court, and in their little theatre "behind the Convocation House."
Unfortunately under Lyly's leadership the Boys became involved in the bitter Martin Marprelate controversy, for which they were suppressed near the end of 1590. The printer of Lyly's Endimion, in 1591, says to the reader: "Since the plays in Paul's were dissolved, there are certain comedies come to my hands by chance, which were presented before Her Majesty at several times by the Children of Paul's."
Exactly how long the Children were restrained it is hard to determine. In 1596 Thomas Nash, in Have With You to Saffron Walden, expressed a desire to see "the plays at Paul's up again." Mr. Wallace thinks they may have been allowed "up again" in 1598;[171] Fleay, in 1599 or 1600;[172] the evidence, however, points, I think, to the spring or early summer of 1600. The Children began, naturally, with old plays, "musty fopperies of antiquity"; the first, or one of the first, new plays they presented was Marston's Jack Drum's Entertainment, the date of which can be determined within narrow limits. References to Kempe's Morris, which was danced in February, 1600, as being still a common topic of conversation, and the entry of the play in the Stationers' Registers on September 8, 1600, point to the spring or early summer of 1600 as the date of composition. This makes very significant the following passage in the play referring to the Paul's Boys as just beginning to act again after their long inhibition:
Sir Ed. I saw the Children of Paul's last night,
And troth they pleas'd me pretty, pretty well.
The Apes in time will do it handsomely.
Plan. S'faith, I like the audience that frequenteth there
With much applause. A man shall not be choak't
With the stench of garlic, nor be pasted
To the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer.
Bra. Ju. 'Tis a good, gentle audience; and I hope the Boys
Will come one day into the Court of Requests.
Shortly after this the Boys were indeed called "into the Court of Requests," for on New Year's Day, 1601, they were summoned to present a play before Her Majesty.
Their master now was Edward Pierce, who had succeeded Thomas Gyles. In 1605 the experienced Edward Kirkham, driven from the management of the Blackfriars Theatre, became an assistant to Pierce in the management of Paul's. In this capacity we find him in 1606 receiving the payment for the two performances of the Boys at Court that year.[173]
Among the playwrights engaged by Pierce to write for Paul's were Marston, Middleton, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, and Beaumont; and, as a result, some of the most interesting dramas of the period were first acted on the small stage of the singing-school. Details in the history of the Children, however, are few. We find an occasional notice of their appearance at Court, but our record of them is mainly secured from the title-pages of their plays.
The last notice of a performance by them is as follows: "On the 30th of July, 1606, the youths of Paul's, commonly called the Children of Paul's, played before the two Kings [of England and of Denmark] a play called Abuses, containing both a comedy and a tragedy, at which the Kings seemed to take great delight and be much pleased."[174]